Why are H1 clouds evenly spaced (on average) in an expanding universe?

[Noble Ox]

In another thread about a non expanding universe I cited a link to mainstream evidence regarding Hydrogen cloud separation data.
I was shocked to receive the comment from the moderator
[QUOTE]

Then start your own thread, don't hijack this one. Thank You

All I was doing was contributing to a discussion by referring folk to published, accepted, evidence one way or the other and had no intention of hijacking anyone. Data is data and not a hijack.
But....
Just why is it that on average, hydrogen clouds are evenly spaced even though the redshifts indicate expansion?
AND. Why is it that the region where the H1 clouds are, on average, evenly spaced, include quite a lot of the supernovae that are supposed to demonstrate time dilation.
http://vixra.org/abs/0909.0040

[forrest noble]

Noble Ox,

In another thread about a non expanding universe I cited a link to mainstream evidence regarding Hydrogen cloud separation data. I was shocked to receive the comment from the moderator: "Then start your own thread, don't hijack this one, Thank You." All I was doing was contributing to a discussion by referring folk to published, accepted, evidence one way or the other and had no intention of hijacking anyone. Data is data and not a hijack.

Sometimes moderators misinterpret one's intent or what a commentator is really tying to do, in my opinion.

Just why is it that on average, hydrogen clouds are evenly spaced even though the redshifts indicate expansion? AND. Why is it that the region where the H1 clouds are, on average, evenly spaced, include quite a lot of the supernovae that are supposed to demonstrate time dilation.

What are you suggesting? If the universe was expanding, why don't you think there would be an even distribution of HI clouds. This even distribution would seemingly be consistent with the standard model explanation that space is expanding. This also is the standard model explanation for the even distribution of galaxies as well as the supernovae that are created within them.

How does this relate to time dilation?

[slang]

In another thread about a non expanding universe I cited a link to mainstream evidence regarding Hydrogen cloud separation data.
[...]
http://vixra.org/abs/0909.0040

That is the link? Where was this published? Only on this website? If so, I don't think it's peer reviewed. So why call it "mainstream"?

Terms like "on average, evenly" are just begging for quantification.

[parejkoj]

Wow! I'd never heard of vixra.org before. Way to rip-off a great idea...

There's nothing mainstream about this text. Quoting from the bottom of page 3 (whatever was used to create this PDF seems to have mangled it):

Taking all the results together along with the later results we can smooth the data by eye and find the reciprocal to show how the average separation of the Hydrogen clouds has changed over time.

"Smooth ... by eye?" Yeah... that's not how we do things around here.

That is apparently how the author gets from figure 1 to figure 2. But it looks like there's a whole lot of smoothing going on. Those figures are only related in the author's imagination, from what I can tell.

Suffice it to say, I'm not going any further than that in the text. If that's how the author wants to generate data from which to draw conclusions, posting it to vixra is probably best for everyone.

[macaw]

That is the link? Where was this published? Only on this website? If so, I don't think it's peer reviewed. So why call it "mainstream"?

vixra is the reverse of arxiv, it is the repository of crank material that was rejected by arxiv.

[Amber Robot]

I took a quick look at that paper, and one thing I don't understand is why the author says that the clouds are "evenly spaced". Just because there is an average value for cloud separation does not imply that the clouds are evenly spaced at that value.

Another thing is that he tries to say that the b-value of the cloud puts an upper limit on the cloud temperature and claims that because it doesn't increase at higher redshift there is a conflict with the expanding universe. But the b-values shown in his Figure 3 are near 30 km/s. For hydrogen, this puts an enormously high upper limit on the thermal temperature, so large as to not be meaningful if interpreting it in the context of the expanding universe. Obviously, the broadening must be non-thermal (though I'd have to look up the papers from which he got the numbers to be certain).

There are other flaws with the paper, to which parejkoj refers, and I won't bother commenting much further.

[Noble Ox]

Now, hang on a minute here, The paper is in essence a review paper, reviewing published mainstream ideas in reputable journals.
Scientists have been 'line counting' for years and as a maesure of this, they select a redshift interval dz and find out on average how many H1 clouds (dN) lie in this interval.
In an expanding universe the number of H1 clouds per unit redshift should decrease as z decreases as in an expanding universe, space moves the the clouds further apart. We know the space between us and the H1 couds has expanded as we are told this by the redshifts (unless of course redshift has nothing to do with expansion - whats your money on?)
The point he is making is that for the last billion years or so (at least) they don't get further apart - they remain evenly spaced.
The paper gives completely new evidence for a static universe.
What I want to know is, if the universe is expanding just how is it that H1 clouds are, on average, evenly spaced?
Why is it that in the regions that we have differing redshifts H1 clouds manage to be evenly spaced on average. In the regions where Supernovae data shows acceleration the H1 clouds still manage to be evenly spaced?
If you don't like the paper then look at the references he draws on.
No, in ATM ideas, this guy has hit gold here.

[parejkoj]

Umm... this paper has provided no evidence to that effect, and the methodology used is laughable. See my comment above.

[Amber Robot]

The point he is making is that for the last billion years or so (at least) they don't get further apart - they remain evenly spaced.

What do you think he means by "evenly spaced"?

[slang]

Now, hang on a minute here, The paper is in essence a review paper, reviewing published mainstream ideas in reputable journals.

So who reviewed this paper to make sure the author did an acceptable job?

If you don't like the paper then look at the references he draws on.

What does it matter which papers he "draws" on? If I write a paper arguing the existance of invisible elves in certain backyards, is it more believable if I cite Einstein?

[forrest noble]

Noble Ox,

The paper is in essence a review paper, reviewing published mainstream ideas in reputable journals.

As a review paper rather than the research paper, it doesn't seem to adequately explain the mechanisms being studied.

Scientists have been 'line counting' for years and as a measure of this, they select a redshift interval dz and find out on average how many H1 clouds (dN) lie in this interval. In an expanding universe the number of H1 clouds per unit redshift should decrease as z decreases as in an expanding universe, space moves the the clouds further apart.

H1 clouds are something like clouds here on Earth. They move, change form, break up, joint together, etc. Gravity would seem to play a role in keeping these clouds together. In an expanding universe the number of H1 clouds should decrease per unit volume as time passes as you suggest, like galaxies. Sightings of extra galactic H1 clouds at great distances are very rare and speculative concerning their sightings. You might as well stick with galaxies instead of H1. Simply, galaxies per unit volume seem to have the same density both near and far which if true would violate the expansion of the universe.

Whilst these results do not support any cosmology individually, they do support one where the universe expanded in the past but that expansion has now been arrested and the universe is now static.

From the information given there seems to be no explanation of the evidence that would lead to this conclusion -- at least not one that I can understand.

[Noble Ox]

What do you think he means by "evenly spaced"?

The mainstream data or 'line counting' picks a certain bin size for z (dz) and then count how many lyman alpha lines (dN) there are in that bin. This is repeated for z = 0 up to the redshift of the quasar. This is then repeated for several quasars and an overall average found.
This is all mainstream and published in reputable, peer reviewed papers.
All he has done is to find the inverse (dz/dN) as since (dN/dz) is the number of lines in a certain redshift then (dz/dN) must be the averager redshift between H1 clouds.
In mainstream, redshift is a measure of distance.
Since the peer reviewed mainstream data shows (dz/dN) to be constant up to z = 1 to 1.7 then the H1 clouds must also be evenly spaced.
But why?
In an expanding universe, the clouds should be moving apart as space expands and so as we look back into the past at greater and greater redshifts, the H1 clouds should get closer and closer together. But in this range (z = 1 to 1.7) they don't and yet supernovae in this range are supposed to show not only expansion but acceleration.
Something very strange going on

[Noble Ox]

H1 clouds are something like clouds here on Earth. They move, change form, break up, joint together, etc. Gravity would seem to play a role in keeping these clouds together. In an expanding universe the number of H1 clouds should decrease per unit volume as time passes as you suggest, like galaxies. Sightings of extra galactic H1 clouds at great distances are very rare and speculative concerning their sightings. You might as well stick with galaxies instead of H1. Simply, galaxies per unit volume seem to have the same density both near and far which if true would violate the expansion of the universe.

Agreed, galaxies evenly spaced, H1 clouds evenly spaced when both should be getting further and further apart. Both results indicate a static universe.

From the information given there seems to be no explanation of the evidence that would lead to this conclusion -- at least not one that I can understand.

I think it because the clouds do get closer and closer together but only in the distant past

[Amber Robot]

Since the peer reviewed mainstream data shows (dz/dN) to be constant up to z = 1 to 1.7 then the H1 clouds must also be evenly spaced.

Ok. You must be using the words "evenly spaced" in a different manner than I am used to. To me, those words imply that the space between each cloud is the same. If that were the case, it would be curious indeed! But just because there are 10 clouds per between say z=0 and z=1 does not imply that the distance between each and every cloud is 0.1 z, which is what "evenly" seems to imply.

[Noble Ox]

Ok. You must be using the words "evenly spaced" in a different manner than I am used to. To me, those words imply that the space between each cloud is the same. If that were the case, it would be curious indeed! But just because there are 10 clouds per between say z=0 and z=1 does not imply that the distance between each and every cloud is 0.1 z, which is what "evenly" seems to imply.

no the clouds are evenly spaced in everyones language. Please remember that this is not my idea it is his (Ashmore's) I only got into this at the request of the moderators, and, never being one to turn down a challenge.... BUT I believe he is correct in this.
Unfortunately I am permanently denied access to arXiv so I cannot check the details and give you quotes.
look at
Weymann, R.J. et al ApJ, 506:1-18,1998
Janknecht, E. et al. [14]A & A458, 427-439. 2006
These are the papers he quotes and without doubt the H1 clouds are evenly spaced.

[Amber Robot]

no the clouds are evenly spaced in everyones language. Please remember that this is not my idea it is his (Ashmore's) I only got into this at the request of the moderators, and, never being one to turn down a challenge.... BUT I believe he is correct in this.
Unfortunately I am permanently denied access to arXiv so I cannot check the details and give you quotes.
look at
Weymann, R.J. et al ApJ, 506:1-18,1998
Janknecht, E. et al. [14]A & A458, 427-439. 2006
These are the papers he quotes and without doubt the H1 clouds are evenly spaced.

I'll have to give those papers a closer read, but I downloaded the Weymann paper and the words "evenly spaced" don't appear anywhere in it. After looking at them more I'll comment further.

I'd just be very surprised if Ly-a absorbers are evenly spaced at low redshift. And when I say 'evenly spaced' I mean in the way that pickets on a fence are evenly spaced. Not like 10 trees seen in a mile along the side of the road implies that all the trees are 1/10th of a mile apart.

[Noble Ox]

I'll have to give those papers a closer read, but I downloaded the Weymann paper and the words "evenly spaced" don't appear anywhere in it. After looking at them more I'll comment further.

I'd just be very surprised if Ly-a absorbers are evenly spaced at low redshift. And when I say 'evenly spaced' I mean in the way that pickets on a fence are evenly spaced. Not like 10 trees seen in a mile along the side of the road implies that all the trees are 1/10th of a mile apart.

evenly spaced won't appear but (dN/dz) being virtually constant will. same thing

[forrest noble]

Noble Ox,

evenly spaced won't appear but (dN/dz) being virtually constant will. same thing

(bold added)

This may be a good study but the way the article reads is nebulous.
Your explanations are pretty good but there seem to be problems.

There seems to be a bias in the data according to my understanding. dz, I believe is being used here as the change in redshift between bins. This is not the same as a change in distance, i.e. evenly spaced distances, as you have commented -- or am I missing something?

Although redshift correlates with distance it's not a proportional relationship. To do that the redshift factor 'z' must be converted to a distance factor. In the Hubble formula this is done by multiplying 'z' by the Hubble factor. Without this conversion of data it would seem that no precise determination could be made, or conclusion drawn concerning even distributions. Am I wrong?

[Tobin Dax]

evenly spaced won't appear but (dN/dz) being virtually constant will. same thing

Not necessarily, and definitely not in this case. Your/Lyndon's even spacing would happen if dN/da were constant. (a is the scale factor, the relative size of the universe at a certain time.) Since 1+z=a₀/a, dz=-a₀/a²*da. This means that the physical size of a region dz gets smaller with increasing redshift, and the number of hydrogen clouds per unit distance increases with redshift as expected.

[forrest noble]

Tobin Dax,

Although what you discussed is certainly what was expected to be found, the link above seems to indicate, according to its author, that is not what was found.

quote Lyndon Ashmore: from OP link

Despite the idea of an expanding universe having been around for nearly one hundred years there is still no conclusive, direct evidence for expansion.

A review of the literature shows that the clouds did once become further and further apart (showing expansion?) but are now evenly spaced (an indication of a static universe?)

[Geo Kaplan]

no the clouds are evenly spaced in everyones language. ...
look at
Weymann, R.J. et al ApJ, 506:1-18,1998
Janknecht, E. et al. [14]A & A458, 427-439. 2006
These are the papers he quotes and without doubt the H1 clouds are evenly spaced.

I have taken a quick look at the Weymann and Janknecht papers, and I cannot find support in them for the assertions you and Ashmore make for "even spacing". Can you point out where in these references such support is to be found? From my read of the papers, they are certainly not claiming that the clouds are evenly spaced in the sense of "everyone's language."

[forrest noble]

Noble Ox,

Ignore my concern in my posting #18. Upon reviewing the papers Weymann and Janknechit, it seems that dN & dz refer to distance adjusted parameters.

[Amber Robot]

evenly spaced won't appear but (dN/dz) being virtually constant will. same thing

They're not the same thing. You can have randomly spaced clouds and dN/dz being constant. I would imagine that if HI clouds were really evenly spaced, especially over such a large redshift range, this would have been a *huge* discovery that would have shocked the field of astronomy and I've never heard of it.

[Tobin Dax]

Tobin Dax,

Although what you discussed is certainly what was expected to be found, the link above seems to indicate, according to its author, that is not what was found.

quote Lyndon Ashmore: from OP link

Despite the idea of an expanding universe having been around for nearly one hundred years there is still no conclusive, direct evidence for expansion.

A review of the literature shows that the clouds did once become further and further apart (showing expansion?) but are now evenly spaced (an indication of a static universe?)

I am aware that Lyndon Ashmore does not believe that there is evidence for an expanding universe. That's old news around here.

I haven't seen anybody say that clouds are evenly spaced "now." When is "now"? The redshift range in question is z=1.0-1.7, which corresponds to a/a0=0.5-0.6 or so. A scale factor of 1/2 corresponds roughly to half the Hubble time. I haven't seen anything more recent discussed in this thread. (I have no intention of reading any papers linked to. Any arguments needed can be made in the thread itself.)

My point was that a constant dN/dz using uniform bins in redshift gives an expanding spacing between clouds due to the increase in scale factor. dN/dz being constant indicates an expanding universe, not a static universe.

[Geo Kaplan]

I am aware that Lyndon Ashmore does not believe that there is evidence for an expanding universe. That's old news around here.

[snip]

My point was that a constant dN/dz using uniform bins in redshift gives an expanding spacing between clouds due to the increase in scale factor. dN/dz being constant indicates an expanding universe, not a static universe.

Exactly. My read of Weymann and Janknecht is that their data directly contradict Ashmore's assertion. Indeed, it appears that, among a host of other risible errors, Ashmore doesn't understand what is implied by a constant dN/dz. I am eagerly awaiting Noble Ox's response.

[WayneFrancis]

So who reviewed this paper to make sure the author did an acceptable job?



What does it matter which papers he "draws" on? If I write a paper arguing the existance of invisible elves in certain backyards, is it more believable if I cite Einstein?

No because I know it is not invisible elves but invisible pink winged unicorns. Sheesh.

[Geo Kaplan]

No because I know it is not invisible elves but invisible pink winged unicorns. Sheesh.

Well, now you're just trying to stir up trouble. It's nanognomes all the way down.

[Noble Ox]

Noble Ox,



(bold added)

This may be a good study but the way the article reads is nebulous.
Your explanations are pretty good but there seem to be problems.

There seems to be a bias in the data according to my understanding. dz, I believe is being used here as the change in redshift between bins. This is not the same as a change in distance, i.e. evenly spaced distances, as you have commented -- or am I missing something?
Although redshift correlates with distance it's not a proportional relationship. To do that the redshift factor 'z' must be converted to a distance factor. In the Hubble formula this is done by multiplying 'z' by the Hubble factor. Without this conversion of data it would seem that no precise determination could be made, or conclusion drawn concerning even distributions. Am I wrong?

In reply to this post and others along the same lines

What they all do is to divide the range of redshift over which they are interested into bins of even sized redshift. Some take 0.1 and some take 0.5. They then count how many Lyman alpha lines there are in each bin. This gives the number density dN/dZ.

In an expanding universe, the distance between objects must increase since z is related to the recessional velocity and if there is a redshift there is a recessional velocity.

The number density dN/dz should decrease in an expanding universe.

the formula relating line density and redshift is
(d/dz) = (dN/dz)zero(1+z)^gamma

What they found originally was that gamma was bigger than expected (greater than unity as expected in an expanding universe).
That is, the clouds were disappearing faster than the BB predicted.

Consequently, this was put down to evolution ie the H1 clouds where getting fewer and fewer as H1 was being 'used up' in galaxy formation and UV background. Everyone happy with that.

BUT, up till recently they couldn't lok at the trend for nearby redsifts as the lines are still in the UV and my understanding is that you need space based detectors to detect lines in the UV because of the absorbtion in the atmosphere.

These came along at the turn of the millenium.

What these found is that the line density was constant ie there were now more lines than expected in the local region.

Problem.

My understanding from the OP is that someone (dave?) proposed that the UV is now less locally so the clouds disappear or evolve more slowly than those further away as there is less ionisation. This was just a guess and a simulation was produced to demonstrate (1999).

BUT this was before gamma =0 and a constant number density.
So now to believe in an expanding universe one has to believe that the universe expands thus reducing the number density of Lyman alpha lines per unit redshift,but the background UV radiation miraculouusly changes nearby so that not as many H1 clouds are zapped (ionised thus reducing their collision cross section) so that this exactly matches the effects of expansion.

All this whilst expansion goes on and supernovae show acceleration.

Or as the OP says, all this is nonesense and the universe is static.

As per Hz, the data is for local space so this is not a real problem here.

[Noble Ox]

Not necessarily, and definitely not in this case. Your/Lyndon's even spacing would happen if dN/da were constant. (a is the scale factor, the relative size of the universe at a certain time.) Since 1+z=a₀/a, dz=-a₀/a²*da. This means that the physical size of a region dz gets smaller with increasing redshift, and the number of hydrogen clouds per unit distance increases with redshift as expected.

This is included in the calculation:


(dN/dz) = (dN/dz)zero(1+z)^gamma
Gamma can't be more than 'one' to comply with non evolving H1 clouds in an expanding universe. You are correct in what you say and dN/dz would tend to infinity in an expanding universe. He doesn't dispute this in the high z region, But in the local region z = 0 to over one why as he says is dN/dz constant.

[Noble Ox]

They're not the same thing. You can have randomly spaced clouds and dN/dz being constant.

dN/dz is the number density and predicted by an expanding universe not to be constant.
It is
Problem

I would imagine that if HI clouds were really evenly spaced, especially over such a large redshift range, this would have been a *huge* discovery that would have shocked the field of astronomy and I've never heard of it.

Its recent and you have heard of it now.