Mass Exodus From Big Bang Begins

[akirabakabaka]

Wow! Why didn't I think of that! Instead of trying to understand general relativity and quantum field theory and string theory, I should just go to the New-Age section of my bookstore and read what all these burned-out ex-hippies have to say! I will grant that it has this advantage over millions of monkeys at typewriters: we get semi-coherent results sooner that way. But trust me, speaking as a burned-out ex-hippie, there is nothing relevant for the sciences in any of this New-Age claptrap. Put the crystals away!

Wow! You completely missed my point! Notice the part where I mention 'public discourse'. These are the only two paths of ideas which have been allowed to filter into the mainstream public. The connection I made was that this is because all other ideas are essentially snuffed out in review, and I was questioning why this was happening. Do you have a real thought to add now?

[akirabakabaka]

Jerry, what the heck is that first sentence supposed to mean? Do you have a problem with wave-particle duality? For the life of me I don't see what your problem with the existence of neutrinos is. They exist. They are procduced in radioactive decay. They are copiously produced in nuclear reactors. They are produced in fusion reactions such as the sun's. Experiments detect them just as they do electrons, neutrons, protons, etc. It's not easy, they don't interact much with matter, but experiments such as AMANDA, SNO, and SuperKamiokande to name a few are essentially neutrino observatories. Experiments like them observed the neutrino flux from SN1987A. Experiments like them detect the neutrino flux from the sun. Recent experiments detected neutrinos produced by radioactive decays in the earth's rocks. And yet you in your wisdom decide that they are mere models. Sorry, your objections are weak and they pale in the face of experimental evidence.

Rant over. I now let this thread get back to BB cosmology.

I don't have time to properly research this thought, but isn't this really a similar argument to CREIL? Isn't it generally assumed, even by neutrino researchers, that photons travel through space without ever being affected by anything? Why does conservation apply to neutrinos but not photons? It seems that you two are using the same argument against each other. I'll get back to this thought later (gotta run!).

[Eta C]

Well, I don't know about photons, which can interact via the EM force. Neutrinos, on the other hand, only interact via the weak force and have a very low cross section for interaction. Therefore it's not unreasonable to say that they can cross intergalactic/stellar distances without interacting.

Jerry seems to want to lump neutrinos into the "gap-filling theory-patching stopgap" category he uses to tar-brush the dark matter hypothesis. The point Tim Thompson and I have made is that unlike dark matter (so far) neutrinos have been directly observed in experiments. Tim gives a good account of why they were first proposed by Pauli, so I won't repeat all of that here. The point is that when a beta deca occurs (the classic case being Co-60) the original researchers only saw the electron moving off in one direction, and that electron did not carry all of the available energy. If one believes that momentum and energy are conserved, then something needs to be moving off in the opposite direction from the electron to carry that energy and momentum. That something needs to be nearly massless and be very difficult to detect. Both apply to the neutrino. The fact that it was some 20 years before neutrinos were detected doesn't make them any less real.

[Celestial Mechanic]

Wow! You completely missed my point! Notice the part where I mention 'public discourse'. These are the only two paths of ideas which have been allowed to filter into the mainstream public. The connection I made was that this is because all other ideas are essentially snuffed out in review, and I was questioning why this was happening. Do you have a real thought to add now?

Yes, I do. The reason why you are likely to see only BB and superstrings in the science section and "alternative views" in the New-age section is that there are plenty of sellers and buyers of both. Mainstream science has many talented people writing books at a popular level explaining what it is about and people are buying them. Some of the classics are reprinted in inexpensive editions by publishers such as Dover and people are buying them as well. New-age has many suckers buying drivel and therefore many authors and publishers willing to supply it.

But many of the proponents of ATM theories are incapable of explaining their theories to anyone but themselves. (Mosheh Thezion is a prime example of this.) This failure to explain means that their papers will not pass muster in peer review and they will not find any authors to explain their theories to a wider public. If they publish, it will mostly be via a "vanity press".

By the way, I have seen some ATM books at the various national bookstore chains. For example, I have seen There Are No Electrons by Amdahl and a book by LaViolette, as well as an execrable "Moon Hoax" book. I have not seen any of Arp's books in stores, but I did consult Seeing Red at the University of Wisconsin astronomy library once.

Let the record also show that I have seen some of the more "new-agey" science books, The Dancing Wu-Li Masters by Gary Zukav and the various books of Fritjof Capra in the science section. (I do not browse the New-Age section.)

[akirabakabaka]

My new-age comment was a joke, btw, hence the winky smiley.

[Celestial Mechanic]

My new-age comment was a joke, btw, hence the winky smiley.

I should have paid more heed to that, for which I'm sorry. But at least we are agreed that the New-Age book section is not the place to go for "alternate views" of science. As I have indicated above, alternative science does wind up on the bookshelves of even the largest national bookstore chains. Another example of this which I only remembered after submitting the previous post, I have also seen Eric Lerner's The Big Bang Never Happened on the shelves.

[akirabakabaka]

But many of the proponents of ATM theories are incapable of explaining their theories to anyone but themselves. (Mosheh Thezion is a prime example of this.) This failure to explain means that their papers will not pass muster in peer review and they will not find any authors to explain their theories to a wider public. If they publish, it will mostly be via a "vanity press".

Heh a few people have been saying this. I have to agree that the more vocal ATMers (Hoagland especially) have a serious problem translating their ideas into words that other people can understand.

Let the record also show that I have seen some of the more "new-agey" science books, The Dancing Wu-Li Masters by Gary Zukav and the various books of Fritjof Capra in the science section. (I do not browse the New-Age section.)

Hey now, the Tao of Physics is good stuff. (no winky smiley here)

[SolusLupus]

I think the main problem with Hoagland isn't an inability to communicate his ideas, but the utter corruption of the ideas before they leave the launch bay in the first place.

[akirabakabaka]

And also the fact that he makes everything up.

[SolusLupus]

That would be a factor, yes.

[Jerry]

Jerry, what the heck is that first sentence supposed to mean? Do you have a problem with wave-particle duality? For the life of me I don't see what your problem with the existence of neutrinos is. They exist. They are procduced in radioactive decay. They are copiously produced in nuclear reactors. They are produced in fusion reactions such as the sun's. Experiments detect them just as they do electrons, neutrons, protons, etc. It's not easy, they don't interact much with matter, but experiments such as AMANDA, SNO, and SuperKamiokande to name a few are essentially neutrino observatories. Experiments like them observed the neutrino flux from SN1987A. Experiments like them detect the neutrino flux from the sun. Recent experiments detected neutrinos produced by radioactive decays in the earth's rocks. And yet you in your wisdom decide that they are mere models. Sorry, your objections are weak and they pale in the face of experimental evidence.

Rant over. I now let this thread get back to BB cosmology.

That is a reasonable rant.

Yes, my problem is with wave-particle duality.

Neutrinos show up everywhere there should be a gravity wave-like interactions. When matter is destroyed, there should be a slight shrinkage in the gravity field strength, but no one has been able to isolate either Higgs Bosons or gravity waves - are neutrinos a glimpse of a function of the matter-energy equation that is not properly characterized by particle mechanics?

[Zahl]

One way to falsify the entire BB framework would be to [...] or that the spectral distortions from recombination, reionization and SZ effect do not exist (all of them so far undetected).

Clarification (or minor nitpick, take your pick): the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect certainly exists, and has been observed. Two examples: The Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect: Results and Future Prospects (there are quite a few SZE papers by this team), Substructures Revealed by the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich Effect at 150 GHz in the High Resolution Map of RX J1347–1145. For more, search using 'sunyaev-zel'dovich observations' in Google Scholar.

Thanks for pointing out that the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect has been observed for individual sources, but what I had in mind was the large angular scale total combined effect from all sources that shows up as a compton distortion y-parameter and could eventually be measured in a sensitive FIRAS type experiment.

Ceballos & Barcos (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/9405/9405052.pdf) give the total combined SZ spectral distortion as y ~ 10^-6 at 0.3mm, about one OOM below the FIRAS limit. If this prediction was not verified in a sufficiently sensitive experiment at, say, 10^-8 level, it would be pretty solid evidence that the CMB did not originate behind all clusters and thus is not cosmic.

[VanderL]

A question about the SZ effect: we assume redshift equals distance, what would happen to the SZ effect when this assumption is false? My guess is that that some clusters of galaxies (which are always clustered based on redshift) will show the effect and others won't. Any comments?

Cheers.

[VanderL]

A question about the SZ effect: we assume redshift equals distance, what would happen to the SZ effect when this assumption is false? My guess is that that some clusters of galaxies (which are always clustered based on redshift) will show the effect and others won't. Any comments?

Cheers.

Reason I ask is because earlier in this thread we discussed this article:

Detailed WMAP/X-ray comparison of 31 randomly selected nearby clusters of galaxies - incomplete Sunyaev-Zel'dovich silhouette

Authors: Richard Lieu, Jonathan P.D. Mittaz, Shuang-Nan Zhang

The WMAP Q, V, and W band radial profiles of temperature deviation of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) were constructed for a sample of 31 randomly selected nearby clusters of galaxies in directions of Galactic latitude |b| > 30 degrees. The profiles were compared in detail with the expected CMB Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE) caused by these clusters, with the hot gas properties of each cluster obtained directly from X-ray observations, and with the WMAP point spread function fully taken into consideration. While the WMAP profiles of some clusters do exhibit the SZE, the phenomenon is also noted to be weak or absent from other clusters. A reliable overall assessment can be made using the combined (co-added) datasets of all 31 clusters, because (a) any remaining systematic uncertainties are low, and (b) the data are extremely clean (i.e. free from foreground contaminants). Both (a) and (b) are facts which we established by examining hundreds of random fields. The verdict from the 31 co-added cluster fields is that the observed SZE only accounts for about 1/4 of the expected decrement. The discrepancy represents too much extra flux for optically thin intracluster thermal emission to be the cause. Radio sources (discrete or halo) are also excluded because they have negative sloping spectra which are inconsistent with the ratio of the signals in different WMAP filters. A resolution of this discrepancy between predicted and observed decrements have potentially extreme ramifications for our interpretation of the CMB. One is forced to conclude that either the CMB is non-cosmological, or there are issues with the WMAP data itself which must be taken into account when interpreting the CMB emission.

Suppose the redshift assumption is incorrect, wouldn't this also influence the SZE measurements in the way described in the article? The authors conclude that either CMB in non-cosmological or there are "issues with the WMAP data itself". While both conclusions could be true, what about the cluster's redshift component?

Cheers.

[Zahl]

That Lieu, Mittaz & Zhang paper is of dubious value since the SZE has already been measured at the expected level in high resolution surveys for several of their sample clusters. Reese et al. (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0205/0205350.pdf) using OVRO/BIMA and ROSAT observations found that eg. the cluster A1689 shows a huge drop of about -1.7 mK, but Lieu et al. couldn't see any. Why is this then? The expected drop should occur only at the very smallest angular scales (0.1-0.3 degrees) for A1689 in Lieu et al., but WMAP resolution is 0.23-0.53 depending on the tested frequency. It seems like they tried to extract information from the WMAP data that can not be reliably extracted because WMAP was not built for this job.

[VanderL]

That Lieu, Mittaz & Zhang paper is of dubious value since the SZE has already been measured at the expected level in high resolution surveys for several of their sample clusters. Reese et al. (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0205/0205350.pdf) using OVRO/BIMA and ROSAT observations found that eg. the cluster A1689 shows a huge drop of about -1.7 mK, but Lieu et al. couldn't see any. Why is this then? The expected drop should occur only at the very smallest angular scales (0.1-0.3 degrees) for A1689 in Lieu et al., but WMAP resolution is 0.23-0.53 depending on the tested frequency. It seems like they tried to extract information from the WMAP data that can not be reliably extracted because WMAP was not built for this job.

Thanks Zahl,

I'm confused though, how could WMAP not be detecting the SZE when it is the most accurate survey to date? Could it be that the tested frequencies show different amount of the SZE for the same cluster? If so, it would mean that you can "cherry-pick" your results.

Cheers.

[VanderL]

I checked Lieu's paper and he comments on the Reese et al. paper (and others as well) :

Comparison of radio interferometry and X-ray data for the same clusters show that SZE-derived and X-ray derived masses and gas fractions are in agreement (Grego et al. 2001; LaRoque et al. 2005), and allows for a reliable determination of the cosmic distance scale (Reese et al. 2002; Bonamente et al. 2005). There is not necessarily a conflict between our present results and the previous reported SZE detections for individual clusters. Indeed, as can be seen from Figure 2, many of the clusters in our sample do exhibit the effect at appr. the anticipated level. The difficulty lies with the average behavior of our randomly selected sample, which can be due to systematic yet hitherto unknown effects of the WMAP data, or to a non cosmological origin of part of the CMB. In the latter case, the published model constraints based on the cosmological origin of the SZE will need to be revised, and the consistent cosmological picture provided by SZE interferometry, see references above, will render this scenario even more intriguing.

Cheers.

[Zahl]

Thanks Zahl,

I'm confused though, how could WMAP not be detecting the SZE when it is the most accurate survey to date?

Cheers.

I just explained that in the post you quoted. WMAP was not built to measure the SZE, it was built to measure the larger scale fluctuations very precisely and map the entire sky.

The effect should barely be seen, according to theoretical expectations, at the WMAP resolution limit and should become significant only below the WMAP resolution limit (this is just what was observed by Reese et al.). Reliability of the data and thus reliability of the information derived from that data at or below the resolution limit is very questionable, obviously. OVRO/BIMA were specifically built to be sensitive and accurate at the required resolutions, so they easily beat WMAP in that respect, but they can't do what WMAP does.

Could it be that the tested frequencies show different amount of the SZE for the same cluster?

SZE is the spectral distortion due to hot electrons in the cluster medium. This translates into CMB temperature drops on some frequencies (low frequencies) and temperature increases on other frequencies (high frequencies) and the net effect is that the CMB appears to have more energy per surface area when seen through the cluster. If this was not the case, conservation of energy would be violated. The specific temperature change per frequency interval can be calculated if cluster properties are known (from X-Ray) and then compared with OVRO/BIMA type measurements. There's not "cherry-picking" in it.

[Zahl]

I checked Lieu's paper and he comments on the Reese et al. paper (and others as well) :



Cheers.

Comparison of radio interferometry and X-ray data for the same clusters show that SZE-derived and X-ray derived masses and gas fractions are in agreement

This means that they acknowledge that the SZE showed up in the referred studies as expected. What is strange though is that they claim that "There is not necessarily a conflict between our present results and the previous reported SZE detections for individual clusters. Indeed, as can be seen from Figure 2, many of the clusters in our sample do exhibit the effect at appr. the anticipated level" but don't seem to notice that there is overlap in the samples. Abell 1689 I mentioned is one example, showing good SZE in Reese et al., but nothing in Lieu et al. This is most probably because Reese et al. used tools that were designed for the job, but Lieu et al. pushed WMAP over the design limit.

[Nereid]

There's another way of looking at the Lieu et al. paper, one which also points to their result being somewhat skewif: they attempt to extract an SZE from a modelled CMBR, not 'the real thing' (or, if you prefer, a CMBR map constructed from observations made by a system not designed to detect SZEs).

[Zahl]

Nereid, I don't know what you mean. The "isothermal beta-model" they refer to deals with cluster density profiles, not the cosmic microwave background. There's nothing modelled about the CMB in their work that I can think of as it uses CMB data as measured by WMAP.

[Nereid]

Nereid, I don't know what you mean. The "isothermal beta-model" they refer to deals with cluster density profiles, not the cosmic microwave background. There's nothing modelled about the CMB in their work that I can think of as it uses CMB data as measured by WMAP.

Sorry, I shouldn't have been so terse (and I'm probably not expressing what I want to say very clearly anyway).

Here's what I mean: on p5 (in section 3) of the ArXiV paper, the authors write (my emphasis): "radial profiles of the mean temperature deviation over concentric annuli are computed after removing the dipole and quadrupole components";

"In order to compare any spatial features seen at a cluster position with the expected SZE behavior, it is necessary to take into account the WMAP point spread function (PSF)";

(p6) "the expected SZE decrement for each cluster is seen overplotted in Figure 2, where the unperturbed ‘continuum’ is aligned with the average temperature deviation in the outermost (2o - 3o) annulus."

In other words, they took the (already highly processed) WMAP data and processed it further (to be sure, they conducted a number of 'sensibility' checks on their procedures, and the techniques are similar to those used quite widely in astronomy). Saying this differently, they created a (simple) model of what the CMB 'should' look like in the direction of these 31 clusters, if there were no SZE.

[VanderL]

Comparison of radio interferometry and X-ray data for the same clusters show that SZE-derived and X-ray derived masses and gas fractions are in agreement

This means that they acknowledge that the SZE showed up in the referred studies as expected. What is strange though is that they claim that "There is not necessarily a conflict between our present results and the previous reported SZE detections for individual clusters. Indeed, as can be seen from Figure 2, many of the clusters in our sample do exhibit the effect at appr. the anticipated level" but don't seem to notice that there is overlap in the samples. Abell 1689 I mentioned is one example, showing good SZE in Reese et al., but nothing in Lieu et al. This is most probably because Reese et al. used tools that were designed for the job, but Lieu et al. pushed WMAP over the design limit.

Ok, so the conclusion drawn in the paper (that the average of the SZ effect for these 31 clusters is too low) can be explained by assuming the clusters that didn't show the expected SZE were calculated with WMAP data too insensitive to show the correct value?

Cheers.

[Nereid]

Ok, so the conclusion drawn in the paper (that the average of the SZ effect for these 31 clusters is too low) can be explained by assuming the clusters that didn't show the expected SZE were calculated with WMAP data too insensitive to show the correct value?

Cheers.

That's one conclusion.

I feel a more appropriate one would be that they have used WMAP data to perform a test that is beyond (or, if you prefer, at the very limits of) what the data could reasonably be used for, so any conclusions should be treated with considerable caution (and accepted only in the most provisional sense).

[Zahl]

Nereid, indeed there are potential error sources in their analysis. I didn't pay attention to it, but the field to field variation in their sample of 100 radial profiles obtained from random locations in the sky by WMAP is more than +/-0.05 mK at 1 sigma at one degree scales and about +/-0.1 mK at smaller scales (fig. 6) and the expected temperature drop is just 0.03 mK at one degree scales and up to 0.15 mK at the smallest scales (fig. 5). One can of course average it over, but I'm not sure how meaningful such an analysis is when the expected effect is equally strong with random variation.

[kbmast]

My response to SOME of you problems with astronomy.

The redshift of quasars is supposedly due to the Doppler effect. If this is true, they are receding from us at speeds up to 99.99% of the speed of light. It would take unimaginable energy to accelerate objects larger than the solar system to such velocities. A cyclotron requires a city's worth of electricity to accelerate a few atoms to such speeds.

Actually it's the expansion of space between us and the quasar that is moving them farther away not the speed of the quasar itself.

Quasars are thought to be up to 20 billion light years away, but the estimated age of the universe, based on the Big Bang, is only about 15 billion years.

I'd need to seem something in a peer reviewed journal where a quasar was thought to be 20 billion light years away. I've never seen anyone claim that since our measurments have become more accurate.

Astronomers believe there are "massive black holes" at the center of most galaxies, and these have a gravitational force billions of times that of the sun. But astronomers have not definitely found even one small black hole yet, and have absolutely no idea how such a massive object could have formed within the estimated lifetime of the universe.

There is very strong evidence to infer the existance of black holes including photos of matter being ejected from the poles as predicted in theory. Given our current technology we've found as much evidence as you would expect, it's not like you're going to find one and put it on a shelf.

Astronomers claim that 90-99% of the mass of the universe is "missing" or invisible. They can't find it (because it doesn't exist)!

Way to jump to a conclusion before experiments have even been carried out. Massive particles that do not interact electromagnetically would be very difficult to detect. Strategies are being devised to detect them but stating they don't exists before the experiments is non scientific. Also theories in partical physics predict heavies particles that have not been observed, theories that have prediced other particles that were later observed.

According to Big Bang theorists, the universe is about 15 billion years old. But it is utterly impossible for the various structures in the universe (galaxies, galactic clusters, etc.) to have formed in this short time. This alone should invalidate the Big Bang theory!

Only if you jump to the conclusion that there is not massive dark matter before any experimentation has taken place. There is mass out there we can see even in our own galaxy that can be confirmed by rotational speeds. Slow moving massive particls that we believe exist would form galaxies like we see today.

Pulsars are considered to be rotating neutron stars. If that is true, then several of these 10 mile diameter neutron stars are spinning 600 times a second! At this rotational rate, the surface would be traveling at 50% of the speed of light.

My math works out different than yours. I get about 10% the speed of light. However with the density in some extreme conditions like neutron stars calculations show the speed of sound would be faster than the speed of light. Maybe that bit of currently unexplainalbe information would be interesting to you.

Hope that helps.

[Grand_Lunar]

There is very strong evidence to infer the existance of black holes including photos of matter being ejected from the poles as predicted in theory. Given our current technology we've found as much evidence as you would expect, it's not like you're going to find one and put it on a shelf.

Indeed.
As I have seen on NASA, the Hubble telescope has confirmed the existence of black holes.

[David Zachmeyer]

The speed of light has not yet been proven to be constant, therefore, attributing red shift to motion may not be correct. Additionally, the "missing mass" may be the Graviton that everyone wants to beleive in but are affraid to acknowledge since they can't see it. The entire theory is based on assumptions and dogma.

[Fram]

We will never be able to proof that the speed of light is constant, but all evidence points towards it, all experiments have confirmed it. Every theory we have may not be correct. This is normal and even necessary in science. To call it therefor "assumptions and dogma" is a huge step, on the other hand, and ignores all evidence and experiments that have been done. "The entire theory is based on experiments and observations" would have been a better description.

[David Zachmeyer]

I appreciate the need to be politically correct. However, if you can’t say for sure that something is true, how can you compile theory after theory based upon this unknown? I find it beyond any imagination to think that a photon can travel for 10 billion years and still be traveling at what we recognize as the speed of light. When it is convenient we recognize that light can be slowed. When it is not convenient we state that it is constant.