Talk:Non-standard cosmology

Jan 2004

Added more information about Arp's theory. Also removed links that were in the main text. Also don't see the connection between non-standard cosmology and the solar neutrino problem.

I readded the links [just easier to have them all listed together] ... and the solar neutrino problem is related to the general "problems" of the "standard"....

The other thing that I removed is that Arp's observations that correlate quasars and normal galaxies would invalidate big bang. Suppose Arp's observations were correct. So quasars and normal galaxies are connected. So what? Quasar redshifts are due to the Flubberizoch effect, and don't invalidate Hubble flow of normal galaxies.

User:Roadrunner

That's not what, I think, Arp argues ... he argues that Hubble's law would be incorrect (from the material I've seen ... though I could be wrong).

Sincerely, JDR

Reddi, you are not incorrect. Arp's observations are almost always taken to invalidate the Hubble expression. -Ionized

Taken by whom? One reason most astrophysicists I know don't take Arp seriously is that no one can figure out why his observations invalidates Hubble flow or the Big Bang. He claims that it invalidates the Big Bang, but if you can find a place where he spells out that logic, I'd be appreciative (I'm not being sarcastic. I really would be interested if you could point me to something where Arp explains why his results invalidate the big bang. I've never been able to understand this and neither has anyone else I've talked to.) -RR

It has been a while since I read his books and I do not recall if he actually gives a detailed account as to why the Hubble expression is invalid, or if he just states his observations and implicitly hints and assumes that the Hubble expression is invalidly used. As I do not have time to go through and re-read his books right now, I urge that you do so. If he gives a detailed account anywhere, it would be in his two books: "Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversy" and "Seeing Red". If you have not read those books (at least the sections on the redshift and other observations, not including variable mass as that is a different issue) that is most definitely the first place to begin. I can not make any accurate assumptions about how you view the redshift, so I will not attempt to vividly explain his ideas to you. But it seems that for some reason the idea that a high-redshift object physically connected to a low-redshift object, does not in your mind invalidate the idea that redshift is a measure of recession velocity (the standard Hubble interpretation.) But if two connected objects should be moving at drastically different velocities, why do we not see a major change in their relative orientation or size when looked at, say over a 40 year interval? Most likely, anything I say here is far from a complete description, and will probably be viewed as wrong or misleading anyhow, so I will go no further. Like I said I havent read Arp's books recently so I do not recall his detailed rebuttal, or if he even gave one (although I can't imagine why he would go on such a crusade without ever explaining himself.) Please read his books. -Ionized 19:53, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC) (As a side note, any chance you would consider posting your replies after my posts, rather then directly in the middle of them? By the time you are done posting in the middle of mine, they end up almost completely incoherent, and I have to go through and add initials to all of my newly fragmented paragraphs. I just want to be civil with you from now on. Thank you.)-ionized

As a follow up... I am home from work and am now able to peruse Arps books I mentioned above. Indeed, Arp does not go straight into how the Big Bang is "invalidated", but rather spreads his arguments out throughout each book. This is most likely so that the reader maintains interest, and is forced to peruse all of his arguments before jumping to any one conclusion. However, it still stands that if you want to know what Arp is thinking, reading his books, starting with "Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversies", is most highly recommended. I purchased my copies through amazon.com, where you can also find used copies, for around $20 each. Also available at: http://redshift.vif.com/Apeiron%20Home.htm

One more note: it was Arp who in 1966 gave to the astronomical community the "Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies". His latest addition is the "Catalogue of Discordant Redshift Associations" published in 2003. -Ionized 02:30, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

One other thing. Arp seems to think that it is a big deal that quasars seem to cluster around z=1.93. No one else does. One fun calculation is to calculate the redshift at which the Lyman alpha line first starts to be visible. One would expect that the point where a major UV line appears in visible, one should see a huge number of quasars. -RR

Please see note about redshift periodicities posted below -Ionized 16:25, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

In fact, if one takes the time to read Hubble's original works, he is very skeptical of the expansion interpretation and only proposed some of his ideas because (at the time,) no other interpretation of redshift was available, other than Doppler. Nowadays there are other redshift mechanisms, whether or not they can be applied to astrophysical process is another story. -Ionized

People have tried. People have failed. -RR

But have they tried all? Also, who is to say there is not a mechanism that humans simply don't know about yet? -Ionized 19:53, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Certainly Arp proposes his own version of the redshift, and indeed claims to have invalidated the Big Bang with the empirical data alone. For more about Hubble, read his papers and books, and also you can find this article explaining some of the history: "Cautious revolutionaies: Maxwell, Planck, Hubble", Brush, S.G., Am. J. Phys., vol. 70, no. 2, pp 119-27, 2002. Ionized 03:03, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)

[I added the link to Cautious revolutionaies ... JDR ]

Didnt even know there was a copy online.. thanks JDR. -Ionized 02:03, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

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Oct 2004

Made some changes to the page to really show why astronomers don't accept non-standard cosmologies. It would be a shame if someone were to read this page and suddenly think that there was no reason for an acceptance of the standard model of cosmology. There are reasons that Lerner, Arp, and others who object to standard cosmology are dismissed, and I tried to show them as much as I can.

Feb 2004

I'll try posting at the end.

The problem with Arp's logic is that even if he were to demostrate that quasar redshifts are not due to the Hubble flow, that wouldn't say anything about the redshifts of normal galaxies. There is a lot of evidence that redshifts of normal galaxies are distance related (type Ia supernova) just to name one of about five (Tully-Fisher relation to name another).

As far as trying all sorts of redshift mechanisms. Yes it is possible that someone will come up with a new original redshift mechanism that will explain the galaxies, but the trouble is that there is so much data and the constraints on the mechanism are so severe, that most people don't see the point in trying. What is likely to happen is that you spend a lot of time and effort in trying to investigate a mechanism, and then after spending several months thinking about it, you find some deadly flaw. The problem then is that you've just wasted your time because a paper that says that a novel mechanism for redshift *doesn't* work is not publishable.

(That's one thing that keep in mind in doing literature searchs. For example, you will find almost no recent papers that try to refute Arp, because a paper that tries to refute Arp is so uninteresting that it is non-publishable. This is particularly a problem since Arp does a bad job of presenting the case against him.

I also suspect this is why there are no papers which use plasma cosmology to calculate coorelation functions. No one can get anything that looks even remotely reasonable, and a paper arguing that plasma cosmology is *wrong* is basically not publishable because it's not interesting.)

Of course, this is how scientific revolutions happen. The odds that the conventional redshift interpretation is wrong is low, but the odds that *something* people are certain of is wrong is quite high. A perfect example of this is between 1963-1967 when continental drift shook the geological community.

However, even in these cases what usually triggers the revolution is new data (in the case of continental drift it was the Mid-Atlantic Ridge). If one wants to look at plasma cosmology, my suggestion would be to not try to fit the model to the current data, but instead argue that the current data is *wrong*. Something that would get attention is a paper that says that plasma cosmology predicts this weird effect that no one has looked for, but if you turn on a detector at YYYY, you ought to see XXXX. Something that occurs to me is that if the CMB is not primordial, then one should be able to see structure behind the CMB, and this structure ought to be much more clear if you have better detectors.

Keep in mind that the thing that made big bang the standard cosmology was that Gamov predicted the CMB decades before anyone detected it. User:Roadrunner

As to the topic about "paper that says that a novel mechanism for [insert favorite target] *doesn't* work is not publishable, see: Martin, Brian, "Strategies for dissenting scientists". Society for Scientific Exploration. Journal of Scientific Exploration, Volume 12 No 4. 1998. (PDF file format)

IMO, solving problems and developing alternatives is not "just wasted time" ... but then many think that pathological sciences haven't contributed anything .... JDR

[Peak:] It was first detected and measured in 1941, but it was called the "'rotational' temperature of interstellar space". See [www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu/ ~ryden/ast682ps/feb12.ps], top of page 3.

Peak 06:02, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There also a final irony in all of this. If you take the galaxies in Hubble's original data, and then use the most recent best data for distances and redshifts, you get a scatter plot with no descernible trend. Essentially, there is no evidence for Hubble's law in Hubble's data. -User:Roadrunner

Just a note on the quantized redshift comment about Arp being the only one - It was Geoffrey Burbidge who first noticed the periodicity of z=1.95, and throughout the years a small group of others also analyzed copious amounts data coming up with a list of prefered z values. As discussed in "Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversies" the group is: Burbidge and Burbidge (1967), Karlsson (1971,73,77), Barnothy and Barnothy (1976), Depaquit, Pecker, Vigier (1984). The list is as follows:

0.30, 0.60, 0.96, 1.41, 1.96. It was identified by Arp that there are other periodicity groupings as well, and that certains groups of quasars exhibit certain ranges of periodicity. One more thing, after spending most of the night re-reading instead of sleeping, I can add additional comments about Arp's books. Arps first book, "Q,R,C", focuses primarily on the observations, with little emphasis at all on his "variable-mass theory". It is the second book, "Seeing Red", which gives more emphasis to the theory side, along with an updated list of observations that where not included in the first book. I recommend you start with the first, it is written in a different style (ie, he seems much more focused on the observations, and less upset at the standard community than in the second book.)

RR, again, I appreciate the dialog we have obtained. I much prefer working with you rather than against you. -Ionized 15:44, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

I should not be posting this yet (because my analysis is rather non-existent, and the parts of it in my head are fragmented) but after re-reading several chapters of Arp last night, I am reminded why I think there is a connection between Plasma Cosmology (PC) and Arp's data. Throughout his first book, he is giving accounts of quasars being ejected from the nuclei of active galaxies, along filamentary structures. Arp, at the time, and possibly still today, does not see how current physics can explain some of the phenomena, which is why he is a large proponent of variable-mass and the steady-state interpretation of matter creation. What I think he might be missing is that his observations are almost perfect descriptions of what some (obviously including myself) would consider plasma related phenomena, happening on the large scale. He describes filaments (often called jets, a remnant of the non-plasma view,) along with different radiation amounts and bandwidths, all of which when seen by a laboratory scientist studying plasma, are different stages in the evolution of a plasma. He can not account for why a low redshift nuclei would emit a high redshift object, coupled with radiation from various bandwidths. But if you look in a plasma laboratory here on earth, you see the very similar phenomena happening on a much smaller time and space scale. Only recently has there been progress in understanding the redshifting mechanisms in the laboratory. It is obvious that, as you say, the standard data may be the incorrect data to use in order to verify plasma processes in the center of galaxies. However, using Arp's non-standard data, it is more obvious that plasma may play a larger role than is currently accepted. As I said, I should not continue discussing this now. However, I am tempted to resume writing a paper that I was working on 2 years ago. If I do, I would invite your peer review. -Ionized 16:43, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

Just an amendment to my above paragraph. I should not claim that Arp does not see plasma processes as a useful approach to his data. In private correspondance, he admitted that some plasma models may be necessary in order to make sense of the ejection process. But where we disagreed is that a "variable-mass" plasma would be needed. In Arp's opinion, the redshift effect is due to the lower mass of the freshly ejected material, which gains mass with time (in accord with Machian physics.) In my opinion, the redshift could be due to, for now I will say 'other' means. It may not be necessary to invoke a variable mass into the plasma process. So to discredit Arp's theory completely is not fair on my part, for he CAN account for why a low-redshift nuclei might eject a high-redshift quasar, he simply accounts for it from a different viewpoint, one which is even further removed from standard physics than that of the plasma cosmology. At this point, I can make no claim that he is in fact wrong, however intuition tells me that there may be a simpler way to account for his data. Ok, enough typing, now i must finish a quantum mechanics problem set which is due tommorrow.. yippity skippity.. -Ionized 18:00, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

Of course, in no way am I the first one to think that it is plasma phenomena governing galaxies... Re-reading papers by Peratt, and also Alfvens books, it seems most of what I said in the above 2 paragraphs has been stated already, one way or another, in far better detail. In fact, there are two main reasons I stopped writing a summary paper: 1) its safe to assume only a couple journals would consider publishing it ("Astrophysics and Space Science", "IEEE Trans. Plasma Science", or Apeiron) 2) most of what I would have to say has already been said before, in great detail (except maybe the connections with the most recent lab based redshift mechanisms) - Ionized 22:27, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

A quote from above "So quasars and normal galaxies are connected. So what? Quasar redshifts are due to the Flubberizoch effect, and don't invalidate Hubble flow of normal galaxies. -User:Roadrunner" What is the Flubberizoch effect? I searched journals, databases, the web, and nothing returns a hit. Please give a reference so that I may investigate it. -Ionized 17:42, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

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Awaiting citation

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)

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)

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)

My abstract database is currently not functioning (upgrading linux and havent had time to redo the mySQL tables..) But I have found more than one paper describing the histroy of the cmb predictions and as soon as I get my database back up, Ill search for the citations and post at least the important one. One important paper I found showed how values where predicted (not nec. by "steady-staters", but also not discluding them) throughout the 1900's, and that these values where much closer to the correct value than those predicted by Gamow and collaborators. The same paper also detailed the history of the predictions by Gamow, showing how they actually diverged from the correct value as the years progressed. Anyhow, give me time I will work on the database over spring break. I find almost all my papers using INSPEC and the Nasa Astrophysics Data System, you just have to use the right keywords to find the non-standard ones. Ionized 02:51, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)

In the meantime, I felt this page needed some fixing up. I changed the order of some parts, fixed a lot of grammar, inserted more accurate wording, etc. This page now better reflects what is meant by a non-standard cosmology. Im going to do something with the very first paragraph someday, it seems it could use better wording. Ionized 22:35, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC) --follow up: reworded the entire Preamble

Citation: I have my bibliography database running again. On the comment about Gamow's predictions diverging from correct values, and non-standard cosmologies predicting correct CBR values (keep in mind back when the non-standard models made these predictions, they where not considered non-standard,) please see - Assis, A.K.T. and Neves, M.C.D., "The redshift revisited", Astrophys. Space Sci., Vol. 227, #1-2, pp13-24, 1995 Ionized 04:29, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)

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Grammar/spelling notes

We should agree on a standard for capitalization of Big Bang and plasma cosmology. Sometime I use capitols, sometimes not, and I wonder what the convention should be. Im inconsistent with plasma cosmology too, but I think usually it is not nec. to capitolize it. Also, I was editing when peak was, and I accidentally saved over his fixes. So I went back to what he fixed, THEN continued my edits. EXCEPT for one thing: since "alternative" is actually defined in the article, we should use "alternate" to describe the steady-state, because it does not fall under the articles definition of alternative. Ionized 21:40, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)

[Peak:] The Big Bang "event" and "theory" should be referred to using capital letters. One reason is that when we speak of the Big Bang, we're speaking of a named event, like "the Fourth of July holiday" (as opposed to: the fourth of July holiday"). Similarly, we might write: "Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory is a theory of cognitive dissonance." Peak 05:01, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The confusion with alternate <-> alternative is cleared up. It was my own mistake to think that alternative was being defined when in fact it wasnt. Removed the section heading altogethor as it was unnecessary and wasnt actually defining anything. The contents of that section are still in the same place, and convey the same point, without the heading. sorry Peak, should have thought harder about it before changing your edit Ionized

When someone sees the light, it is cause for celebration, not apologies! Peak 05:01, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Dark energy non-standard?

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)

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I see the page has been nicely trashed again, to make the big bang stand out again. WTF, this page is NOT about the big bang. You know, i dont care anymore. have it your way, you have removed perfectly valid sentences and replaced with trash. i give up on this -Ionized 17:00, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

I am SOOO tempted to do a revert. So im just warning you now. revert.. revert... Back to the coherent version that talked less about big bang and more about non-standard!!!! -Ionized 22:26, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

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Is general time dilation real?

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)

Interesting new film

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)

Cheers, Jonathan

Modifications

I reverted part of the preamble back to the more coherent explanation which i created months ago but had been subsequently censored by others. A link to the standard model (big bang) was added in the paragraph so that proponents of that theory will be happy, i hope. I also removed 2 disclaimers that where added by BB proponents while i was away. I tend to not add to the BB article any disclaimers (however i have added a very clear one in bold attention in the BB talk page,) i would appreciate it if BB props please respect this.-Ionized 16:24, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Rearranged and renamed some section headings. How on earth an article on non-standard cosmology conatined only one main heading titled "standard cosmology", i will never understand. it is better now. I also removed a redundant section or two. -Ionized 16:44, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

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Changed it as follows:

1) The statement that a non-standard cosmology is not merely one that contradicts big bang is incorrect. The definition of non-standard cosmology is *any* cosmology that is not big bang.

2) The statement that recent developments have shaken belief in standard cosmology needs to be attributed. Most astrophysicists simply do not believe that recent observations have brought the big bang into question. (If you want to challenge that statement, we can do a survey of papers in ApJ or preprints in arxiv.org.)

Roadrunner 16:56, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Actually, I think the article is terrible because it does a horrible job surveying non-standard cosmologies. It spends *way* too much time talking about Arp, and doesn't mention some of the non-standard cosmologies that people are really interested in.

Most of the recent papers on non-standard cosmology I've read are actually on the QSSM model.

Roadrunner 17:16, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Removed this link which isn't about non-standard cosmology at all........

• Jedamzik, Karsten, "A Brief Summary of Non-Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Scenarios". Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Garching.

Also, I think the thing to do is to take the review of non-standard cosmology from Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics and incorporate it into wikipedia. That was a *really* good article.

The QSSM model needs to be expanded a lot because that it the non-standard cosmology that seems to have the most professional interest right now. QSSM has some good answers for nucleosynthesis issues, and also judging from the papers in archvix, they are the people who are most active in trying to deal with the new cosmological data that is coming in.

Roadrunner 17:39, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So what is the Flubberizoch effect? you still have not answered and I still cant find it documented anywhere. -Ionized 18:51, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

RR, I disagree with your #2: "2) The statement that recent developments have shaken belief in standard cosmology needs to be attributed. Most astrophysicists simply do not believe that recent observations have brought the big bang into question. (If you want to challenge that statement, we can do a survey of papers in ApJ or preprints in arxiv.org.) - Roadrunner 16:56, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)"

So are you saying that the foundations of the big bang are not at all in question?

Not by most of the papers that are currently being written in ApJ.

and then you also state in the article that the big bangers KNOW about the problems and objections?

Yes. And the consensus among astrophysicists in 2004, is that all of the problems and objections can be handled without questioning the foundations of the big bang. Now this doesn't mean that the consensus is correct. The consensus has been wrong before. In 1960, most geologists thought the plate tectonics was a nutty idea.

you contradict yourself and expect ME to prove it! it isnt going to work that way. If the big bang was not in question, recently or not, would this article exist?

Of course. There should be encyclopedia articles on all sorts of theories. However, an article on non-standard cosmologies needs to simply include the fact that most astronomers don't take them seriously as of 2004 and the reasons why they don't take them seriously. The scientific community has been known to be *wrong*, and it wouldn't surprise me very much if a decade from now everyone is laughing at themselves at how the data was misinterpreted for a non-existent big bang.

The statement does NOT need to be attributed. Besides, if you want attribution, look at what someone added under the "objections to the big bang" section. You can go ahead and search ApX all you want. Im busy. And statements such as (schematically) "this is a minority view, the majority believe in the standard big bang" should not be inserted. it is already stressed SEVERAL times in the article that Big BAngers such as yourself think that us non-standards are wrong. you dont see me going into the big bang article and adding discalimers, do you?

Maybe you should if you think the disclaimers are appropriate. For example, it would be useful if you go through the evidence for the big bang and list alternate interpretations of the evidence.

no, cause i respect that space. On a different note, I do agree that each different cosmology needs its space in this article. And lets not forget, the only reason Arp made it to this article already is cause YOU moved him here from the plasma page! With time this page will continue to improve. I agree more needs to be said about as many non-standard cosmologies as we can do. In the mean time, im removing the section titled Alfven Universe cause this is all covered in the plasma cosmology page.

The trouble is that there are a lot of different and conflicting plasma cosmologies of which the Alfven universe is only one. Historically and philosophically, the Alfven universe is extremely important because it represents a very interesting and signficant approach to the problem, and so it should get a lot of space. -RR

no doubt, which is only why i removed the heading which contained an empty body. the alfven model can come back in once it is summarized nicely, instead of left blank. and roadrunner, i see you are back at interrupting other's posts to get the upper hand, rather than obtaining paragraph dialog..-Ionized 20:51, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Yes this page is still a mess, but we can work to clean it continuously. -Ionized 20:36, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I like what you did with the pre-amble, concerning the multiplicities of cosmologies. I changed some wording (mostly for grammatical reason and clarity.) I removed another small and obvious disclaimer, that non-standard cosmologists are a tiny part of the community. That much is obvious. I hope we can agree now on the paragraph. -Ionized 20:55, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Please don't make it up

Flubberizoch effect? Is that some sort of joke? If you can't provide papers or evidence, don't just make it up. In other news, while trawling around on arxiv, there are some interesting papers by Martin Lopez-Corredoira from Brazil. A particularly interesting one questioning the redshift expansion is arXiv 0310214. I've toyed with Tired light, but someone beat me to it a month earlier with Tired light effect. - Jon 05:17, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Will whoever it is who is editing this page please get yourself a log in so we can discuss the article, instead of this endless to-ing and fro-ing. I'm quite prepared to discuss things, but not if you insist on hiding behind an IP address. I already stated at the beginning of the article that a local redshift mechanism is not clearly understood. - Jon 01:16, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Someone removed the mentioning of Redshift periodicity in the article. It will soon be re-inserted. Must I remind you of something I posted many months ago above on this very page? it reads:

"Just a note on the quantized redshift comment about Arp being the only one - It was Geoffrey Burbidge who first noticed the ::periodicity of z=1.95, and throughout the years a small group of others also analyzed copious amounts data coming up with a list of ::prefered z values. As discussed in "Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversies" the group is: Burbidge and Burbidge (1967), Karlsson ::(1971,73,77), Barnothy and Barnothy (1976), Depaquit, Pecker, Vigier (1984). The list is as follows:

0.30, 0.60, 0.96, 1.41, 1.96. It was identified by Arp that there are other periodicity groupings as well, and that certain

groups of quasars exhibit certain ranges of periodicity... "

Since this was NEVER disproved, when I have time I will translate the above information into suitable form for insertion into article. Unless someone else wants to do it first... -Ionized 14:26, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

Quantization of redshifts was roundly disproved by an agreed upon test advocated by Burbidge and leaders of the 2dF survey. Burbidge made a prediction that quasars in the survey would show quantization. 2dF showed that they did not. This is basically the death-knell for quantization of redshifts. -user unknown

well that is ok, and this means that we can include both the first proposed quantization AND its refutation in the article. Can you please point me to the papers in which the proposal is discussed? rather, you could begin to add this yourself. Basically quantization of redshift is going back into the article, and so we could also add the 2df suirvey results after the initial discoveries are explained.-Ionized 14:26, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

Also there have been several major galaxy surveys since 2dF. None of them show any sign of quasar clustering around galaxies or any sort of quantization. The other point is that you need to identify which Burbidge. There are two major astronomers named Burbidge, one who is a strong advocate of non-standard cosmology (the quasi steady state model) and one who isn't. The two of them happen to be married to each other.

Roadrunner 19:13, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Hi there, I have reworked most of the edits and put back your changes (sorry about the edit clash, I wasn't immediately sure what to do as I am still new to Wikipedia). I have stated quite clearly where theory is lacking, it does not need to be reinforced with large hammers! :-) Ionized, I'm going abroad for a week, so I'll leave it for you in case we end up stepping on each other's toes again.

Also, this talk page has exceeded 32K, what does that mean and what shall we do about it? Happy hacking - Jon 02:55, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

the exceeding 32k thing just means we need to break up our page into more sections, which we have been doing. this way if people with ancient comps cant edit the entire page, they can at least edit individual sections. so it is not a problem. you dont step on my toes at all, your edits have greatly clarified many issues which needed to be done. I agree that greatly reinforcing the infantile and under-developed nature of our theories should not be done. It is most obvious by now that this is NON standard, so I remove as many disclaimers as i can, all of which have been inserted by BB proponents. Its amazing how the BB props wear their thick BB glasses when looking at the non standard models. If only we could get them to look at it while their thick vision altering lenses are removed...

You aren't aware of the results of one of the major galaxy redshift surveys and then you go around and argue that proponents of the big bang are acting out of ideological blindness? The major thrust of observation cosmology in the last ten years has been doing statistical work on the CBR and galaxy redshift surveys.

(all from within the standard paradigm, as if it will point to anything but the big bang-Ionized 20:44, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC))

You can get big bang models to fit those statistics (you have to do some fudging but you can get it to fit). I'm not aware of any plasma cosmology model that even starts to come close. QSSM is taken a bit more seriously because they are aware of the data and are trying to get QSSM to fit.

My gut feeling is that if you try to calculate a power spectrum from a plasma cosmology, you will get a power law dependence on scale, which is what you get whenever you look at the power spectrums of things that we know have to do with plasma. It's hard for me to see how a plasma process can get the spectrum you see in galaxy surveys or more to the point the CBR. If you can point me to a preprint where someone has even tried, I'd be appreciative.

Please go ahead and give it a try!-Ionized 20:51, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Jon, could you please research the redshift periodicity so that we can add this back into the article? i simply dont have time. good place to start are the papers by Burbidge etc listed above. ohhh, and you should check out the "Center for Magnetic Self-Organization in Plasmas", a new NSF and DOE funded multi-disciplinary center which was founded in 2003. Im soon applying for grad work there, as it is one of the few places where active plasma astrophysics research is happening.

You have to distinguish between plasma astrophysics and plasma cosmology. There are lots of places where plasma astrophysics is going on, and its hard in fact to find a non-cosmological process in astrophysics in which plasma isn't involved.

Roadrunner 19:29, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

-Ionized 16:41, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Did anyone actually READ Lerner's 1990 ApJ article? If they had, they would have known about local vs intervening magnetic field interactions, and not vandalised the article. This is a NON STANDARD cosmology page, therefore there will be gaps in the proposed theories. We have stated this at the top of the article. Please discuss things first before anonymously wading in and cocking up the article. I'm more than happy to say that X dne Y, but we want to compose the text so that it is easy to follow, not read like a drunken slanging match in a university clubroom. Cheers, Jon 15:19, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Removed this

However, this point is highly subjective, as any physics may be considered either exotic or not, dependent on that persons view. Another point worth mentioning is that no human model of the universe can truly be complete and in final form, when communicated.

Maybe this needs to be clarified but the term exotic physics means things that we haven't observed directly in the laboratory. Also, I don't see the second sentence as being relevant or even true.

Roadrunner 19:40, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

---

Changed the wording of the objections to the standard model. The previous wording seemed to imply that the issues raised by the open letter were under dispute when they aren't.

Roadrunner 13:10, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dark matter

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)

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)

POV warning

Can somebody clarify to which point "The neutrality of this article is disputed" applies? It seems to me, the POV warning realtes to a much older version of the article and should be removed. --Pjacobi 12:29, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

Edits by anon user

I cannot for the life of me figure out why the edits that were made by the last annonymous user are considered better. A wholesale revert has been done, if there are any objections, please talk about them here. Joshuaschroeder 29 June 2005 14:56 (UTC)

Please, I implore the anonymous user to write their objections here. Joshuaschroeder 4 July 2005 21:45 (UTC)

For interested parties, there is a decent article in the 2 July 2005 New Scientist on page 30 covering non-standard cosmology. Jon 05:06, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Would it be possible to reference some other publication other than that bullyrag? Joshuaschroeder 05:21, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

It's a reasonably fair report on the June 2005 Crisis in Cosmology conference in Portugal. The URL for the conference is http://www.cosmology.info/2005conference/ For instance, it refers to a recent relativistic MOND solution (see arXiv article), some criticism of BB from Scarpa (globular cluster star motions) and Lerner (plasma cosmology), WMAP anomalies reported by Magueeijo et al., High redshift galaxies with dusty lanes, etc. The original NewScientist article is subscription only. Jon 09:38, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the direct link. Joshuaschroeder 13:05, 11 July 2005 (U

Wow reading this a year after last coming here is kind of a trip... I still laugh at the "the survey shows it supports big bang" type stuff,,, no kidding huh? of course it supports BB it was designed through the eyes of BB!!

Wholesale deletions

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)

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)

Non-standard versus standard

Regarding this paragraph...

Pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, and junk science are all terms used to describe ideas that are proposed that are considered by the scientific community to either lack explanatory power or are incomplete compared to the accepted scientific theories. All the ideas discussed in this article have been described as these things at various times. Some of the ideas were at one time considered possible explanations but have since been dismissed in favor of the Big Bang. Other ideas have never had wide acceptance. All nonstandard cosmologies rely on a rejection of the major features of the Big Bang which are considered problematic by the proponents of the ideas for a number of reasons ranging from religion to claimed skepticism. Proponents of these ideas often invoke past scientific revolutions where the dominant scientific paradigm was rejected in favor of a new idea to lend credibility to their beliefs. As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and making a claim that any one proponent is akin to Newton or Einstein tends to be met with incredulity by scientists.

... Doesn't this somewhat imply that all non-standard theories are Pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, and junk science, as considered by the whole scientific community, for reasons from religion to skepticism?

That would seem to imply that (a) genuine scientists can't do genuine scientific work, that happens to turn out incorrect, and (b) only standard cosmology is true science (c) Only accepted knowledge is scientific.

Is this a neutral point of view? --Iantresman 16:59, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

It is true that all of these ideas are one of those things. That is basic NPOV. The least "offensive" to the sensibilities of the proponents is probably the term fringe science which makes no value judgements with regards to whether the idea is really scientific or not, but simply points out its minority status. Your statement that this statement implies something other than it says doesn't seem to be backed up by the actual text. Joshuaschroeder 14:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

The implication is that the genuine scientific study of any non-standard cosmology is either pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, and junk science. If we take plasma cosmology, which is investigated by professional scientists in a sceintific manner... what makes any part of plasma cosmology either pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, or junk science? --Iantresman 18:50, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

That's not an implication, it's directly said. Any study, be it scientific or otherwise, is in the context of the ideas being one of those things. Plasma cosmology is fringe science at best. Joshuaschroeder 02:09, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

The fact that the near-consensus of physicists is that the big bang view is the best available cosmological model, and the basic features of the model have been sufficiently confirmed that there is little likelihood of any change in the central features of the model. That alone makes those investigating alternatives to the big bang fringe science. It is just the same as biologists investigating alternatives to natural selection, geologists investigating alternatives to plate tectonics, etc... There is a broad scientific consensus. Regardless of what you, personally, think about the big bang, or the motives of those scientists, the existence of the consensus is indisputable. This is acknowledged clearly in the cosmologystatement.org website (that someone will invariably try to direct me to as evidence of widespread dissent): "Today, virtually all financial and experimental resources in cosmology are devoted to big bang studies. " –Joke137 20:55, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

In the same way that Big Bang cosmology was fringe science when it was first proposed? And presumably every new theory is fringe science since there is no consensus, and the field of study is very small? --Iantresman 22:31, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, precisely. The Big Bang, when Lemaitre proposed it, was definitely fringe science. Every new theory that is made in response to a majority theory of the scientific community is necessarily fringe science. Joshuaschroeder 02:07, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

That's fine then, though depsite my own objections for the Big Bang theory, I wouldn't lump it with pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, or junk science. --Iantresman 09:19, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't either, seeing as how it is not the time of Lemaitre and Einstein, but it is 2005. Joshuaschroeder 12:12, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

The paragraph serves no purpose other than to taint nonstandard cosmology. While it is ostensibly written using the trappings of the neutral point of view, it comes across as far from neutral. It's a thinly veiled tarring and feathering of nonstandard ideas. That's why I removed much of it. Furthermore, it's vague "all of the ideas ... have been described as these things at various times". Oh really? This kind of sloppy broad brush smear is not the NPOV. Also, the use of the passive voice "have been dismissed" ... by whom? --here the paragraph hides behind a semblance of objectivity. Also, why is "claimed" scientific skepticism... it isn't the NPOV to add "claimed" just to cast doubt on the sincerity or competency of the claimants. See the Wikipedia guidelines on NPOV for this. I intend to delete this section again rather than edit it to neutrality, since it's very presence is a deviation from neutrality. --GordonHogenson 02:59, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. But Big Bang cosmology is more than just a "standard cosmology" and "theory"... it is a dogma, and all other lines of enquiring are subjected to ridicule. I've had the same problem with the entry on Redshift where only cosmological redshifts are allowed to be detailed. I feel sorry for all the scientists who investigate new avenues of thought, but who are automatically tarred a fringe scientist. Science historians will get to look back at these times and not be in the least bit surprised --Iantresman 07:57, 29 September 2005 (UTC)