Talk:Non-standard cosmology/Archive 1

message: The following parenthetical remark has been been moved from the preamble because, although it may be true, some citation is needed:
:(which may not be true, since steady state models correctly predicted the proper value of the CMB long before Gamow and collaborators)
Citation is needed because there are plenty of quotations such as this one:
:"Unfortunately, the Steady-State theory finds it virtually impossible to explain either the light elements or the CMB, both of which require the universe to have been much different in the past than it is today, namely very hot. For this reason, all but the most rabid fanatics gave up the Steady-State theory around 1965 with the discovery of the CMB." 
(Attributed to Tony Rothman, General Relativity professor at Harvard.)
Peak 07:34, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Though I didn't put that in (anon editor  24.236 did) ... I'll look up a reference ... JDR 10:21, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: As a follow up ... it seem that Edward Guillaume, Paul Hertz, Erhard Regener (1933), and Arthur Stanley Eddington ("The Internal Constitution of the Stars". Diffuse Matter in Space. 1926.) predicted the proper value of the CMB. This was on the basis of a steady-state Universe in equilibrium of an infinite duration. Also Fritz Zwicky, Erwin Findlay-Freundlich, and Max Born did so [on a alternate basis]. More to come ... JDR 13:13, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Awaiting citation

message: I don't really understand why dark energy is included here.  While it is a very new idea (in its modern, repulsive form), the observational evidence for it is sufficiently compelling that most working cosmologists now accept it as part of the standard model of the universe (the so-called "Concordance Cosmology").  I've rewritten the dark energy section (which seemed to be deeply confused between dark energy and dark matter, another now-standard idea) but I'm not sure it should be here at all.  -- Bth
:I don't know why it is here either.  But I didn't want to remove it myself as I had already revamped the rest of the article, and just kind of stopped.  It seems to me that the whole 'dark' scenario has indeed been taken up by the standard, and is not a key ingredient in the usual non-standard models, hence should be removed from the non-standard page.  Now that you have re-written the section, it seems better, but it should still be clarified as to why it is included in the article.  If by chance it was somehow there to lend discredit to the standard, it should be removed. -Ionized 02:08, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
:Another note-  in fact, if you are a Plasma Cosmologist, dark matter and dark energy is basically a myth that arose from negligence of electro-magnetic forces on the large scale. -Ionized 02:13, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
::Oh no, I'm definitely not a Plasma Cosmologist.  But the dark stuff is pretty much standard these days, so I think I'll revamp that part of this article soon.  But not immediately; I want to write a page on Concordance cosmology first (mainstream cosmologists have pretty much settled on a model of the universe now -- 70% Dark Energy, 27% dark matter, 3% baryonic matter -- though there are still plenty of unanswered questions) and this material or sthg similar could probably go there. --Bth 09:31, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Dark energy non-standard?

message: Despite that the effect is known since 1985 there is no official agreement on its viability because of seemingly not enough cosmological redshift for the expansion of space and the GTD together. But is it a good enough reason for denying the reality of the effect if it is required by conservation of energy? Isn't it just replacing the conservation of energy with expansion of the universe for no good reason at all? Jim  19:25, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Is [[general time dilation]] real? 

message: This is not a plug, just a heads up. I've been following this topic closely since Lerner published "The Big Bang Never Happened" in 1990 (with a title like that, who am I to leave it on the library shelf unread?!) and monitoring this and related pages for a while. 
I've just bought the DVD of the newly released Universe film by Randall Meyers from http://www.universe-film.com/ which nicely summarises much of the dissenting opinion from within cosmology and astrophysics, eg. Peratt, Lerner, Alfven, Arp, Hoyle, Assis, Narlikar, Pecker, et al.
Whilst I'm not necessarily buying all of the viewpoints expressed, I found a couple of particularly interesting points that arise in the film.
One is Lerner's concise explanation in under 2 minutes of how the CMB temperature and smoothness can be explained as the absorption and reemission of radiation by dust as IR, and how that explanation predicts a more rapid distance-related decline of galaxy emission in the radio spectrum compared with IR (that is, at increasing distances, galaxies appear to emit less radio while their IR emission is held constant). This is the same effect as trying to see distant on-coming car headlights in a fog.
:: So he claims.  The problem with that explanation is that if you have a dust model you'd expect to see some lumpiness due to the initial emission of the radiation and because the dust itself will be lumpy.  Personally, I don't see how you can combine lumpy galaxies causes by EM, and not get huge amounts of non-lumpiness in the dust.  An even bigger problem is polarization.  It's really hard to see how you can get non-polarized radiation from reflection.
Another is the photographic and other data of Arp, brilliantly portrayed and jaw-dropping when seen in moving pictures, that shows the consistent relationship between quasar fields and nearby galaxies, in particular the decreasing redshift of the quasars with increasing distance from the associated galaxy. 
:: Most astrophysicists think that Arp isn't selecting his data randomly.
Part of this sequence was the brightness/redshift chart for galaxies, which shows the strong relationship that Hubble deduced his distance law from, but the same chart for quasars shows NO SUCH RELATION. 
:: And the standard explanation is that you don't get this relation with quasars because the quasars aren't standard candles.
We are forced to conclude that there is a non-distance component to quasar redshift, but it seems nobody wants to know. 
:: Which there is.  Quasars have wildly different brightnesses, and there are a huge number of
other effects.
Not really wanting to add fuel to fire here, but this whole issue seems to come down to dogmatism and a refusal to look down Galileo's telescope. If data do not fit our theory, then it is our duty to question everything, including all assumptions, until they do. Inventing ever more exotic epicycles with no supporting observational data just straps everyone to the hospital bed.
:: The problem here is that the movie presented one side of an argument.  There are a lot of standard responses to these issues, and a lot of responses to the responses, and responses to the responses to the responses.  It may be that non-standard cosmologists are right and most astronomers are wrong (i.e. see continental drift of an example in which a crackpot theory turned out to be right).  However it is *NOT* the case that astrophysicists support standard cosmologies out of blind dogmatism.  
:: One problem is that non-standard cosmologies don't form a single coherent theory and non-standard cosmologies disagree with each other as much as they do with standard cosmologies.
Roadrunner 17:52, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting new film 

message: Also the discussion of dark matter needs to be revised.  The situation is as follows.
Big bang cosmologies require huge amounts of dark matter to work.  This issue is 
completely independent of galaxy rotation curves.  The fact that there seems to be
a requirement for dark matter that is completely independent of the big bang is one
of the reasons why most astronomers think that the BB is on the right track.
:Please explain why and how dark matter is independent of Big Bang models, as I find that difficult to believe. - Jon 14:53, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  The observations of of galactic rotational curves/velocity dispersions are only one way to get at the mass of systems. One can and does also use gravitational lensing and X=Ray temperature measurements of clusters to obtain masses. Then all you need to do is apply the normal mass-to-light ratio to see if the measurements agree. They don't. Every measurement we have of mass that is independent of the mass-to-light emission ratios that we get from normal matter shows that there is about 90% more matter in the universe than stuff that interacts with light (atomic and plasma matter). That's completely independent of the Big Bang model which predicts, from the positions and strengths of acoustic peaks in the CMB, a similar abundance of dark matter. Not to mention that the hierarchical model of structure formation also relies on dark matter to work. So there are a number of ways that the Big Bang predicts dark matter and there are a number of independent measurements of dark matter that are in concordance with the predictions.
The other fact is that the amount of dark matter than BB cosmologies require is 
much larger than the amount of "missing matter" is need to resolve the galaxy
rotation curves.
Roadrunner 13:13, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dark matter 

message: Whole sections of this article have been deleted - which just proves the point I was making about the "orthodoxy" of the Big Bang theory. This is the non-standard cosmology page for goodness sake! One section deleted for being "undocumented and frivolous" was my assertion that "a healthy skepticism and an ongoing and wide-ranging debate about alternatives is felt by some to be better". I would have thought this was the whole basis of science! Science progresses by a coolly skeptical approach and a weighing up of all alternatives, not by sticking rigidly to one theory. In cosmology, one of the deepest and most mysterious of subjects, there should be 5 or 10 theories constantly compared and contrasted. Some parts of some theories may seem implausible, but the relative implausibilities have to be weighed up.
In the Big Bang theory, for example, one has to explain (a) the initial Big Bang, (b) inflation, (c) dark matter, (d) dark energy.
In the Quasi-Steady State theory, one has to explain (a) matter creation, (b) the CMB.
In some forms of static Universe theory, one has to explain (a) "tired light" redshift, (b) "tired gravity", (c) the abundance of light elements.
The Big Bang theory is having problems. This needs to be faced up to. Dark matter, dark energy and inflation are all totally unproved and speculative. I particularly like the part of the Big Bang article about dark matter particles, which states that "several projects to detect them are underway". In other words, "we have no evidence whatsoever for them".
I made the point about the (relatively) very close Andromeda Galaxy having its estimated distance drastically increased - to illustrate how a relatively approximate science cosmology still is.
On the Cosmological Principle, this has been used completely erroneously in the past, when successively the Earth, the Solar System and the Milky Way Galaxy were thought to be the entire Universe. There is no reason why the largest structures we currently know should necessarily be the largest structures in existence, and this needs to be borne in mind.
Let's keep debating. In a skeptical scientific way, of course!
Chris
81.136.6.24 18:31, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether the Big Bang theory is having problems or not is not the issue. Your inclusions were personal research and not documented, as is most of what you are writing here. Moreover, your insistence about the largest structures we currently know should be necessarily the largest structures in existence has no relevence to the article. Nobody is saying that there aren't larger structures out there due to the Cosmological Principle -- in fact it's the observation that there is statisically no formations larger than superclusters which are said to be the first vindications of isotropy in the universe. Not to say that this won't be found to be incorrect in the future, but your attempt to address this in the article was entirely spurious. Joshuaschroeder 23:13, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Wholesale deletions

message: The recent deletion by User:Sdedeo on the plea of (rm nn theory) for the Tired light (i.a.) model Scale Expanding Cosmos by Johan Masreliez, raises the issue whether notability criteria can be applied in an article dealing with fringe science, which to me bears the same characteristics as the wiki nn judgement ?? /Kurtan 08:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  on [[NN]] grounds 

message: Maybe it's worth pointing out (at the risk of sounding obvious) - the Big Bang theory gets most of the funding for research, as mentioned in the "Open Letter to the Scientific Community" in the main article. Anyone who wants to research alternative/non-standard cosmologies is unlikely to get funding, and is likely to be ostracised by most mainstream scientists. This means that most of the research performed is on aspects of the Big Bang theory. Therefore the research is likely to find something, sooner or later, that supports the theory! Any data which does not goes unnoticed, or is ignored, or is regarded as "noise" in the welter of data produced. If you throw two dice repeatedly, looking for two sixes, you will eventually get two sixes, but you may well not have noticed the two fives you got on the way.
Any findings of research, if there are any, are therefore likely to support the prevailing theory, and other phenomena are likely to be passed over (probably quite innocently) as irrelevant noise. Anyone who disagrees with the prevailing theory is criticised for pushing "original research". Since virtually no publications are produced on non-Big Bang 
cosmology, anyone who tries to disagree with the Big Bang theory is criticised for saying things which are "unverified" and "without citation". Since most researchers support the theory they are working on, it becomes the mainstream opinion, and so any other opinion becomes "fringe" or "non-neutral". The whole subject therefore gravitates to one big self-perpetuating theory. ~~
Also, Big Bang supporters say that criticisms of their theory are "unscientific" because of the lack of research, and lack of published material, supporting those criticisms. In this they are, very strictly speaking, right. A bit worrying, really.
::The funding is already mentioned in the article. No need to beat the reader over the head with it. --ScienceApologist 19:10, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right, they don't, but the big bang has to assume dark matter, dark energy and inflation first before it is "well supported" by the wealth of data. These assumptions only arise because big bang wasn't well supported by new observations, and don't actually add any explanatory power to the theory. Even if LCDM is correct, what does it tell us about dark matter, dark energy or inflation? Fuck all. Jon 11:22, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That statement is patently false. Luckily nothing like that statement is anywhere in Wikipedia because there is literally no source that says this except for that which Jon writes. --ScienceApologist 11:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Big Bang Theory gets most of the funding