Can Expansion Theory Really Explain Observed Universe?

reply to post by CLPrime

Once again you are right. You really should write a book sometimes! You really could reach out to those people who try learning the basics or whose learning is incomplete.

Let me come at the photon/space stretch thing using another approach.

Here you state:

Originally posted by CLPrime

As for redshift...of course the expansion of space affects wavelength. In the time it takes an EM wave to travel from point A to point B, space has stretched by a given amount. This stretches the wavelength of the EM wave by a corresponding amount.

That's actually exactly what I am saying! I actually agree to that statement, as it fits mine! Don't you see. Space, by stretching itself, stretches the wavelegth of any EM radiation which passes trought it. That means, in the case of space, the distance of 600 nm is stretched... along with the wave's length! In other words, the stretched wavelength still fits the 600 nm distance of space, because this distance of space has been stretched! We are not talking about adding space or multiplying it, we are talking about stretching it! Distance references are stretched too!

Read this next part very carefully.

If you're in a car, on a desert road, and that road is 100 meters long, and your car's wheels travel exactly 1m each time they make a revolution, and your motor makes the wheels of your car turn at 1 revolution per seconds, then it will take your car 100 wheel turns and 100 seconds before you reach the end of the road.
But suddendly the next day something happens: everything miraculously stretches. The road stretches, your car stretches, everything stretches 5 folds. Now, the road is stretched to 500 meters. Your motor still makes 1 turn of wheel per seconds, but your wheels (which here represents the stretched wavelength) are now stretched too so that they are also stretched 5 times bigger: each times the motor turns them, they make 5 meters after 1 cycle (representing the increase in wave's length). How much wheel turns and time will it take you to make it to the end of the stretched road? 100 wheel turns, after 100 seconds. You would have experienced no changes compared to the un-stetched scenario. If your wheels were a wave, you would observe no difference between the two scenarios: in both scenarios, your wheels made... (100 cycles/100 seconds equals... )1 cycle per second (both were, in other words, 1 Hz waves) and arrived at destination at the same time (or after 100 cycles, or 100 seconds). No redshift in frequency would be observed, because when space stretches, it stretches the amount of space a wave (the wheels) covers in 1 second!

Remember the relativity clock. In real world, when space stretches, it also stretches time, That means the photon travels a field in which time is slowed down too, along with stretching of space! The time it takes for the photon to cover the stretched distance is equal to normality because time is also stretched down too. That means, the photon has "bought more time" to cover the said stretched distance.
Frequency is equal to the amount of cycles that a periodic phenomenon makes in 1 second of time. The frequency stays equal in both scenarios!

You sure observed redshift couldn't simply be the result of galaxie's Gravitationnal Redshift?
They do have gravitationnal redshift, right? They are massive as several bilions of suns. Surely this redshift can be observed by Earth.

I know, as you say, astronomers aren't stupid, but I am also not naive, alot of them only follow the general trend because if they start questionning what is considered fundamental by the more older authorities, they have a high and very understandable risk of being ridiculized. I don't mind being ridiculized, I just hope some people try to see what I see. If only you could see the... idea, concept, I am trying to convey to you, so that you may better review it, I would find that worth everything.

Originally posted by swan001
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

You really don't know who's Stephen Hawking???

What gave you the idea I didn't know who he is? Of course I know who he is. I was asking for a source for the quote from that other guy you mentioned with a similar name, which I'm still waiting for.

Or maybe you made a typo, but I still didn't find that quote even if you spelled his name wrong.

That's an interesting point because the next generation space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope is being designed to see what we humans can't see...infrared. The reason for this is the expansion of the universe results in such great redshifts of more distant objects that limiting our observations to visible light may be limiting what we can observe. So WE are for the most part not observing infrared. Our eyes can't see that. We build instruments which can see infrared which then translate those wavelengths into something we can interpret with our senses.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


True, we have these wonderful tools and I'm not taking any thing, not one thing AWAY from the scientific community. Infrared tools if I'm not mistaken don't see all that much. It detects heat or electromagnetic radiation. We knew it existed, great... We can now see it. I love science! The fact of the matter is I also love the philosophers of the past and all ideas pertaining to nature itself and the nature of the Universe. I add the all to come up with the sum.

Of course I have great respect for great minds of the past, but I think many of them would have respect for the scientific method we have if they were alive today. At the time Plato lived, (from your link that you suggested relates to this thread but I'm still not quite sure how it does) the concept of infrared wavelengths was not understood, yet this turns out to be critical to advancing our observation of the most distant objects which are redshifted so far that infrared wavelengths are relevant. I don't fault Plato for this, but I do point out there were limitations in ancient scientific knowledge.

They would indeed be proud, but I also think they would wonder why we have gone from point a to z rather quickly without Nous. The understanding of the intellect in regards to the nature of all things has been limited to the human brain and nothing more. They saw more. Infrared may not have been known but evidence of radiation was known.

We have the basics down when it comes to matter, light and energy. We can visualize what happened when the Universe was created. When we talk of photons, quantum leaping, wave lengths, and so on I'm visualizing something different as my perception of such knowledge is different.

I have a theory. Lol

In short.... Very short...

The Universe is expanding but the way it's expanding is important. It's an expansion of thought and the harmonics of the word from the thought. It's an Expressionable Universe. It's a flow of such and is indeed expanding. We see this in all things, including but not limited to, our self and the nature of not just the living things on earth. Its most definitley also seen in the cosmos as well.

If one takes what they know scientifically and apply to the creation stories plus all of creation, or just the big bang, you can see it as many expressions of the same thing.

It contains all truth and everything we know, see, and feel or sense.

reply to post by swan001


A ruler is bound by molecular bonds. Atoms are bound by the electromagnetic and strong nuclear forces. Free particles are wavefunctions that are not subject to expansion, and a given collection of particles is bound by any number of forces.

Despite the Milky Way being a gravitationally bound system, the Earth would still experience non-zero expansion if it wasn't, on its own, gravitationally bound. The human body would expand ever so slightly over billions of years if we weren't thoroughly bound together. But we are, so we don't.

Every force, bond, and attraction you can think of will counteract universal expansion.

Originally posted by CLPrime
Despite the Milky Way being a gravitationally bound system, the Earth would still experience non-zero expansion if it wasn't, on its own, gravitationally bound. The human body would expand ever so slightly over billions of years if we weren't thoroughly bound together. But we are, so we don't.

According to Cooperstock et al., the Earth's orbit might experience non-zero expansion, despite being gravitationally bound to the sun. However it's probably too small an effect to measure as there are other larger but still miniscule influences on Earth's orbit.

Why doesn't the Solar System expand if the whole Universe is expanding?

For the technically minded, Cooperstock et al. computes that the influence of the cosmological expansion on the Earth's orbit around the Sun amounts to a growth by only one part in a septillion over the age of the Solar System. This effect is caused by the cosmological background density within the Solar System going down as the Universe expands, which may or may not happen depending on the nature of the dark matter. The mass loss of the Sun due to its luminosity and the Solar wind leads to a much larger [but still tiny] growth of the Earth's orbit which has nothing to do with the expansion of the Universe.

It's so small I can't really object to saying it's pretty close to zero, but it is interesting that it may have a tiny non zero value.

Originally posted by swan001
You sure observed redshift couldn't simply be the result of galaxie's Gravitationnal Redshift?
They do have gravitationnal redshift, right? They are massive as several bilions of suns. Surely this redshift can be observed by Earth.

You're not alone in questioning the origin of the redshift, and there are some possible alternate explanations that aren't completely dead like "tired light", but the gravitational redshifts of galaxies don't explain observations of the Hubble constant.

Think about that for a minute. If the more massive galaxies had bigger redshifts and the less massive galaxies had smaller redshifts, irrespective of distance, that type of pattern might be consistent with what you suggest.

What we observe is that a closer more massive galaxy has a smaller redshift than a more distant less massive galaxy. That fact doesn't really match your idea which would cause the more massive galaxy to have a larger redshift. But it does match an expanding universe, right?

By the way, there is of course a redshift caused by gravity, but it's only one factor affecting our observations, and it's overshadowed by the redshift related to the Hubble constant. There's some math related to that here if you're interested:

www.physicsforums.com...

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

According to Cooperstock et al., the Earth's orbit might experience non-zero expansion, despite being gravitationally bound to the sun. However it's probably too small an effect to measure as there are other larger but still miniscule influences on Earth's orbit.

In fact, atoms, molecules, and even people are negligibly larger due to expansion, as things like molecular bonds and subatomic forces have to settle into slightly higher energy levels to compensate.

You're not alone in questioning the origin of the redshift, and there are some possible alternate explanations that aren't completely dead like "tired light" ...

I'm assuming you're saying that "tired light is completely dead, but there are some possible alternative explanations that aren't," as opposed to the possible alternative, non-dead, explanations being inclusive of tired light. The lack of a comma suggests the former, but I want to make sure.

reply to post by CLPrime


Yes. But I was using the ruler and the body and the motor as an example to illustrate my idea.

Do you agree that if space stretches, light wavelength stretches; but then time also stretches?

reply to post by MamaJ


One must not confuse metaphysics (which is philosophy, alot of times based on weird prediction from physics theories) and physics.
But one must keep an open mind too. The harder part is keeping both in constant balance in your mind.

reply to post by swan001


Yes, time stretches, because it's not just an expansion of space, it's an expansion of spacetime as a whole. It's the opposite of gravity, which is a compression of spacetime.

ETA: see my reconsideration below...

reply to post by CLPrime


So, if you would send a photon in this stretched space and time, would the photon vary in speed and wave length (space between 2 crests)? No. The speed is related to time. As the photon travel a stretched time, it has more time to make it to the next wave crest, which means, no overall variation would be observed.

reply to post by swan001


Actually, let me modify my answer. Time is not stretching in the same way as space is expanding. The analogy between gravity and inflation is a good one but not perfect.
Gravity is a positive pressure producing curvature in 4-dimensional spacetime. As a result, light follows what appears to be a curved path, resulting in gravitational time dilation.
Inflation, on the other hand, is a negative pressure. This does not produce any local curvature (in fact, over time it counteracts the curvature caused by gravity).

There are two ways of looking at time in an expanding universe. One is to keep distance constant and define time based on the speed of light (another constant). The other is to keep time constant and define distance based on the speed of light. When you keep distance constant, time (in this case, called "comoving time") speeds up as the universe expands. If you keep time constant, then distance increases as the universe expands. The first option is just silly. It's the second option that's actually useful...as the universe expands, we see distance increase, and the rate of the passage of time stays the same.

Originally posted by swan001
reply to post by MamaJ

 

One must not confuse metaphysics (which is philosophy, alot of times based on weird prediction from physics theories) and physics.
But one must keep an open mind too. The harder part is keeping both in constant balance in your mind.

Confuse? Not sure thats the best word , but you said it, not me.

I think one must not separate everything into categories, knowledge is knowledge. Philosophy is a creation that influenced many belief systems we have today including but not limited to, science.

All this oneness stuff, it's an expression from a collective people sick and tried of separatiion. We can and should be free to express our self about the goodness and order of nature, us, and the cosmos!

You see the Universe expanding, I see it expanding.

I expanded on the thought of an expanding universe, and time and time again in this thread the expression is not at all taken seriously. That's ok, I'm finished trying to have a discussion that's not receptive. I don't want to force my thoughts on you or anyone for that matter.

The descriptions of the different energies, redshifting, molecules, atoms, different micro and macro particles, photons, and so on within this thread is a description of life expressing itself on other levels that are not human!

Expressing yourself is an outward flow, same with the Universe. We all expand, evolve, and grow until we transfer the energy!

Originally posted by CLPrime
I'm assuming you're saying that "tired light is completely dead, but there are some possible alternative explanations that aren't," as opposed to the possible alternative, non-dead, explanations being inclusive of tired light. The lack of a comma suggests the former, but I want to make sure.

It's dead in my opinion and for most of the scientific community. I'm also guilty of overstating the case, which I think Wikipedia states more accurately:

en.wikipedia.org...

tired light theories still appear occasionally in speculative journals

Just like you no longer hear about cold fusion but instead it's been renamed to LENR, the speculative theories aren't called "tired light" but instead are given names like CREIL which stands for "Coherent Raman Effect on time-Incoherent Light" which claims to give better explanations of quasar redshifts, so I'm not sure everyone recognizes that as a tired light theory but that's how I see it. They never seem to gain any more credibility than cold fusion, but some people just won't give up on that either.

Originally posted by swan001
reply to post by CLPrime

 

So, if you would send a photon in this stretched space and time, would the photon vary in speed and wave length (space between 2 crests)? No. The speed is related to time. As the photon travel a stretched time, it has more time to make it to the next wave crest, which means, no overall variation would be observed.

edit on 28-8-2012 by swan001 because: (no reason given)

I just joined the forum and read this thread before I did. You are doing a good job of sorting out the issues surrounding expansion and I thank you for sticking with it.

I want to introduce an idea that relates to the photon energy and the measure of time, and that is that the observed raw redshift data confirms galaxy separation but does not suggest to me that space is being added. The photons or light energy we observe from other galaxies that show the redshift might be caused because the galaxies actually have separation momentum imparted to them by the particles from which they were formed. That concept is based on the idea that as matter first formed out of the hot dense energy ball, the new individual particles that emerged, did so during rapid expansion, and so they could have all been moving away from each other at the instant of formation. Of course when particles form, gravity is initiated, and so there would be clumping going on at the same time as there was separation of the new particles.

Eventually the clumping resulted in the observed expansion, and it appears that expansion momentum could be winning out over gravity as indicated by the accelerating rate of expansion recently observe.

I'm getting in late so I hope this post is appropriate to where you are in the discussion.

Originally posted by BogieSmiles
I want to introduce an idea that relates to the photon energy and the measure of time, and that is that the observed raw redshift data confirms galaxy separation but does not suggest to me that space is being added.

Thanks for your post. I admit I'm a little confused by your post and am not sure what point you're trying to make exactly, so I'll post a few things I think are related and see if it helps clarify issues related to some possible points you might be suggesting.

You can choose a coordinate system and mathematically describe the same thing in two different coordinate systems;

Are galaxies really moving away from us or is space just expanding?

This depends on how you measure things, or your choice of coordinates. In one view, the spatial positions of galaxies are changing, and this causes the redshift. In another view, the galaxies are at fixed coordinates, but the distance between fixed points increases with time, and this causes the redshift. General relativity explains how to transform from one view to the other, and the observable effects like the redshift are the same in both views. Part 3 of the tutorial shows space-time diagrams for the Universe drawn in both ways.

Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Either coordinate system is valid mathematically.

However, you run into some problems if you assume the galaxies are moving away from us THROUGH space and assume space isn't expanding (I'm not sure if that's what you're trying to suggest?):

Expanding Confusion: common misconceptions of cosmological horizons and the superluminal expansion of the Universe

We show that we can observe galaxies that have, and always have had, recession velocities greater than the speed of light. We explain why this does not violate special relativity and we link these concepts to observational tests. Attempts to restrict recession velocities to less than the speed of light require a special relativistic interpretation of cosmological redshifts. We analyze apparent magnitudes of supernovae and observationally rule out the special relativistic Doppler interpretation of cosmological redshifts at a confidence level of 23 sigma.

If that is what you're trying to suggest, my understanding of this claim is the authors have ruled that out to a confidence of 23 sigma (that's a lot of confidence).

Originally posted by BogieSmiles
Eventually the clumping resulted in the observed expansion, and it appears that expansion momentum could be winning out over gravity as indicated by the accelerating rate of expansion recently observe.

This part I understood, but it's not possible. Remember an object in motion remains in motion....that's momentum, right? It doesn't say anything about acceleration. You can't get acceleration from just momentum, so to say "expansion momentum could be winning out over gravity as indicated by the accelerating rate of expansion recently observe" is inconsistent with the concept of momentum.

Regarding the rest of your post, if your ideas differ from mainstream, maybe you could describe how we could make measurements that would confirm or refute your concepts versus the mainstream concepts. Then I might have a better understanding of your idea.

I find your post very on-topic, so such posts are always welcome.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I was thinking of there being two opposing forces associated with expansion; separation momentum and gravity. The gravity component declines with the increase in distance (inverse square rule) so if one of the two forces declines, I'm wondering why the other doesn't get relatively stronger, hense accelerating spearation (expansion).

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I noted your edit and appreciate it. In a few weeks I'll have enough posts to start a thread and then I hope you will be there from me, lol. I fear getting off topic, especially with my favorite delusions. I'll stay tuned and let Swan keep on track.

Originally posted by BogieSmiles
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I was thinking of there being two opposing forces associated with expansion; separation momentum and gravity. The gravity component declines with the increase in distance (inverse square rule) so if one of the two forces declines, I'm wondering why the other doesn't get relatively stronger, hense accelerating spearation (expansion).

You're welcome.

Gravity is a force, so it can cause acceleration or deceleration. Momentum is not a force so that's the basic problem with that idea. It cannot cause acceleration.

I'm not sure how comfortable you are with graphs, but this graph illustrates the effect of gravity versus momentum:

map.gsfc.nasa.gov...


Any line other than the red line illustrates some possible results from gravity competing with the expansion. To your point, you can see:
-the blue line shows gravity not slowing down the expansion
-the green line shows gravity slowing down the expansion a little
-the gold line shows gravity slowing down the expansion a lot (completely).
The green and gold lines show what you are talking about regarding gravity competing with the expansion, and this was our model of the universe before 1998, but notice that expansion never speeds up with any line except the red line.

In 1998 when we discovered the acceleration of the expansion, we added the red line, which includes acceleration from some unknown force, acting against gravity. We still don't know the source of that force, so we call it dark energy, but it might result from vacuum energy aka the cosmological constant. That can create a force opposite gravity which is what might be causing the observed acceleration in the expansion shown by the red line.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Thank you again and I'll have my 20 post before I know it if you keep responding, and I'm not soliciting, lol. Look from me to start a thread and I will not feel like I'm taking advantage so soon in my membership here. It is just that I also tie dark energy into my delusions. Don't answer that because ... I'll wait to start a thread. Sorry Swan, carry on :thumbsup:

reply to post by BogieSmiles


I look forward to your thread. I'll wait to respond to your ideas there (though Arbitrageur has done a great job so far in this thread). Meanwhile, welcome aboard. No matter how indignant I may seem at times to left-field theories, I very much appreciate the push and pull that's required to keep science from becoming one-sided. And, of all people, I should really be one to appreciate the non-traditional. So good luck in your theoretorizing.