age/expansion of the universe

[busterdog]

Has anyone ever determined if the rate of expansion of matter in the universe has been constant throughout history? Has the accumulation of matter and energy in the universe ever created enough gravity and electromagnetic forces to slow down or speed up the rate of expansion? If the rate of expansion was once greater than it is now, can we really measure the age of the universe by measuring its current size? If the rate of expansion has been constant, then it would take x years for the universe to reach its present size. But if the rate of expansion has changed over time, wouldn’t the age of the universe be older or younger than it appears to be?

If the rate of expansion has changed, do we know how many different times it has changed? If you accept that the rate has not been constant and you don’t know the number of times the rate has changed (or the direction of each change), can’t you simply make the observed data from our time support whatever idea you want to believe about the age of the universe?

BTW: I’ve heard of the inflationary theory, but I haven’t studied it.

2Pe 3:4
And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as [they were] from the beginning of the creation.

Anticipating the relevance objection, these scientific models do project a certain type of future. The scripture says this is false prophecy and that thing will not continue as they are, nor are things as they are what they once were.

 

[busterdog]

ingers of God in an Expanding Universe

If one looks in the Southern Sky at about 13h 06m -33d 04m one encounters the richest cluster of galaxies known - The Shapley Supercluster. Recently spectra of many galaxies in the cluster have been measured (Proust et al. 2006). They vary from a few thousand to at least 60,000 km/sec. (The latter velocity would be close to 1/5 the speed of light!)
Figure 1

Cone diagram (right ascension) of the galaxies observed in the area of the Shapley supercluster up to a recession velocity of 60,000 km/sec. (From Proust et al. 2006)

The prevailing current assumption in astronomy today is that the amount of redshift is directly a measure of distance. So the higher redshifts in this cluster would be at at distance of the order of 20% of the radius of the Universe.
It is truly remarkable that authoritative astronomerse and physicists can measure galaxies in a well defined cluster and accept without question that some of the members are 1,000 Mpc from other members (that is, over 3,000,000,000 light years distant from other members).
What do they think this cluster is? In fact they are forced to say it is a structure that I would compare to a great sausage stretching out from us toward the outer reaches of the Universe. The miraculous aspect is that this sausage is pointing directly at us, the observer.
But perhaps an even stranger aspect is that the far end would be receding from us at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Quick, the mustard!
These cluster elongations toward the observer have been noticed in other regions of the sky and, causing some inquietude, been dubbed "Fingers of God". The reason for unease is obvious. The fingers are pointing to the conclusion that we live in some special place in the Universe. Very anti-Copernican.
Is there any way out of this embarassing situation? Yes. As a last resort, one can look at the observations. For 40 years now evidence has been building that bright parent galaxies are surounded by younger, companion galaxies which have higher intrinsic redshifts. When plotted in a cone diagram, as shown in Arp 1998, p.71, the younger galaxies are at higher redshift and stretch out behind the brighter, low redshift parents.

References:

1. Arp, H. 1998, Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science, Apeiron, Montreal
2. Arp, H. 2003, Catalogue of Discordant Redshift Associations, Apeiron, Montreal
3. Proust, D., Quintana, H., Carrasco, E., et al. 2006, The Shapley Supercluster: The Largest Matter Concentration in the Local Universe, ESO Messenger 124, p30

..

 

[busterdog]

For flaja:

againt from haltonarp.com

Faint Quasars Give Conclusive Evidence for Non-Velocity Redshifts

In the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, 243 redshifts of objects fainter than 25.5 mag. were observed. Remarkably, two of them turned out to be very high redshift at z = 4.800 and z = 4.882. Even more remarkably these two fell only 3 and 1.5 arcsec on either side of an emisssion line galaxy of z = .733. (The ESO Messenger No. 118, p.49 and Vanzella et al. astro-ph/0406591.) The picture shown below is probably sufficient to convince most people that this is another pair of ejected, intrinsic redshift quasars.
Figure 1

Quasars of z = 4.882 and z = 4.800 are aligned across an emission line galaxy of z = .733. Emission Ly alpha can be seen intruding into the spectrum of the lower redshift, central galaxy. (Vanzella et al. astro-ph/0406591)

But if we compute once more the probability of the author’s redshifts falling this close to a given galaxy, alignment, similarity of redshifts etc. one gets 3.5 chances in 10 million of being accidental! This is hardly "a posteriori" since my Catalogue of Discordant Redshifts (Apeiron 2003) lists many similar pairs with even less probability of being chance. Then in the same Messenger issue on p.36 there is a GRB/Supernova of z = .691 connected to a host galaxy of z = .472. They hasten to inform us that the latter is a "foreground galaxy" but as the picture below shows, there is a continuous luminous connection between the two (Masetti et al. 2003, A&A 405, 465..)
Figure 2

OT (Optical Transient) is the after glow of a gamma ray burst. It has a redshift of z = .691 whereas the galaxies 1 and 2 have z = .472 (Masetti et al. 2003.)

They do not reference the paper Geoffrey Burbidge published titled "The Sources of Gamma-Ray Bursts and their Connections with QSO’s and Active Galaxies" (ApJ 2003, 585, 112.)
Since, as usual, none of the above authors reference the voluminous evidence that quasars are intrinsically redshifted objects ejected from lower redshifted galaxies, there is very little chance of conventional astronomy correcting a huge error in their fundamental assumptions. The consequences for astronomy, and science in general, are discouraging to contemplate.

 

[shernren]

Hoo boy. This is going to take me more than the 15 minutes I have left before class to debunk. But briefly:

1. Even Setterfield believes that the same laws of the universe that govern the speed of light have been in operation throughout the existence of the universe. Setterfield is as uniformitarian as anybody else - if he didn't believe that light in the present behaves the same as light in the past, he can't take data about light in the past and say it applies to light in the present. Hence, by your interpretation of Scripture, your hero Setterfield is a scoffer as much as any scientist. (Ouch!)

2. Fingers of God are a documented observational phenomenon; they were predicted / discussed in literature as far back as 1972 (which makes Arp a little slow on the draw, and on the mustard too). Essentially they arise because peculiar velocities in a galaxy cluster have large components in the direction of an observer. (Do "peculiar velocities" violate Hubble's Law? No: consider observing the Earth from the Sun: you wouldn't see the Earth receding from you at the speed required by Hubble's Law, which would be very small, but you would see the Earth orbiting you. That's an example of a peculiar velocity, and it is by no means impossible or even improbable.) Again, well-documented phenomenon. No need to panic.

3. Wikipedia says it best:

Arp's work is based on a limited number of specific quasar-galaxy associations. Most astronomers believe these associations are simply the result of chance and point to the hundreds of thousands of quasars documented in more recent redshift surveys. These surveys show quasars to be distributed randomly over the sky, rather than associated with radio galaxies. Furthermore, there is now a detailed model of quasars as the ultraluminous cores of active galactic nuclei, effectively the centers of Seyfert galaxies. This model is consistent with the results of more sensitive observations which have been able to resolve host galaxies around quasars with the same redshift as the quasar. The consistency of the standard quasar model with the assumption that all quasars are at cosmological distances leads most astronomers to apply an Ockham's razor conclusion that intrinsic redshifts do not exist.

 

[flaja]

I'm puzzled by this set of statements. Who has gone further: the man who accelerates from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds, or the man who has been driving at 60 for 3 seconds.

Wait, wait. I think I've got it. I'm confusing what thing I'm comparing: time v. distance.

The phrase "expansion of the universe" is one of distance. Since the guy driving at a constant 60 has gone some distance X takes less time to do it (as my first paragraph above implies), then if we are in fact excellerating, it has taken more time to get to this point X.

Well, I'll leave this rambling here in case someone else was also confused.

Acceleration is defined as the change in velocity / change in time.

Velocity is defined as the change in displacement / change in time.

We commonly associate velocity with speed.

If the universe has had a constant velocity, then its age would be the time in the velocity equation- the universe reached x distance in y time traveling at speed z.

But if the universe had a velocity of 0 at time 0, its acceleration has changed because its velocity went from 0 to whatever speed it reached without changing speed.

So the question is how many times has the velocity changed and what was the direction (greater or less speed) each time and how long did it take to achieve the change in speed?

Now, how can we use the size of the universe to determine its age if we cannot fully answer the first question? And since no one was around to observe the universe since the Big Bang, how can we honestly answer the first question?

Remember that acceleration can be positive or negative. Go faster and its positve. Go slower and its negative. And we cannot assume that the change was also positive or always negative.

 

[notto]

AAnd since no one was around to observe the universe since the Big Bang, how can we honestly answer the first question?

By examining evidence we do have.

You know, science.

By your logic we should open the jails and let the murders go free.

 

[flaja]

No, you haven't.

The fact that the decay rate for carbon-14 can be altered by things like temperature was evidently discovered by the first people who tried to use carbon-14 to date things. And apparently the dates that radiocarbon dating facilities provide is based on a standardized set of conditions, much like using STP when applying the gas laws from chemistry in the lab. But the lab is not the real world. The world doesn’t have STP, so radiocarbon dates are nothing more than speculation.

 

[flaja]

By examining evidence we do have.

Evidence that is based on unfounded assumptions and which seldom supports one another.

 

[notto]

The fact that the decay rate for carbon-14 can be altered by things like temperature was evidently discovered by the first people who tried to use carbon-14 to date things. And apparently the dates that radiocarbon dating facilities provide is based on a standardized set of conditions, much like using STP when applying the gas laws from chemistry in the lab. But the lab is not the real world. The world doesn’t have STP, so radiocarbon dates are nothing more than speculation.

Your fact is in error.

Temperature does not impact the decay rate of isotopes.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem00/chem00750.htm

You really should study up a bit before you claim things as fact. It makes it hard to take you seriously when you make such elementary mistakes.

You are clearly confusing rate of C14 production with C14 decay. Something that somebody who is familiar with the process of C14 decay (or physics in general) would not do.

You also seem to be unfamiliar with how C14 is calibrated. Your claim about it being based on any constant set of conditions is false as well. It is calibrated based on naturally occurring samples of known age. Just ask any lab that does the dating. They will tell you exactly that - probably right on their web page.

Not that C14 dating has anything to do with evolution but you have already been shown that.

Why don't you just ask some questions instead of making statements based on misconceptions of what you think you know. We can help to get you familiar with the science behind the concepts you want to discuss. It makes it frustrating that you have decided to make ignorant statements instead of asking honest questions or demonstrating any actual familiarity with the subjects.

 

[notto]

Evidence that is based on unfounded assumptions and which seldom supports one another.

No. Evidence that we can touch, feel, and count.

Your statements have no basis in reality or with what scientists actually claim or do.

Suggesting that lines of evidence don't converge on common conclusions is simply silly. There are several independent lines of evidence that lead us to the conclusion of an old earth. There are several independent lines of evidence that lead us to the conclusion of common descent. You continue to demonstrate that you simply are not familiar enough with them to discount or evaluate them.

Your one line dismissals will have little affect unless you can actually support them with some reference to reality. So far, you haven't.

Your the one sticking to dogma and wishful thinking.

 

[shernren]

The fact that the decay rate for carbon-14 can be altered by things like temperature was evidently discovered by the first people who tried to use carbon-14 to date things. And apparently the dates that radiocarbon dating facilities provide is based on a standardized set of conditions, much like using STP when applying the gas laws from chemistry in the lab. But the lab is not the real world. The world doesn’t have STP, so radiocarbon dates are nothing more than speculation.

Cite source please. If you're referring to the source you cited in the C-14 dating thread, that source doesn't actually say that temperature and pressure change the decay rate. It changes the measurement of the amount of C-14 left in the sample by certain techniques. The actual amount of C-14 in the sample isn't affected by temperature and pressure. The reading of the instrument that gives you the result, however, is.

And in any case, your objections don't apply to meteorites ...

 

[shernren]

Acceleration is defined as the change in velocity / change in time.

Velocity is defined as the change in displacement / change in time.

We commonly associate velocity with speed.

If the universe has had a constant velocity, then its age would be the time in the velocity equation- the universe reached x distance in y time traveling at speed z.

But if the universe had a velocity of 0 at time 0, its acceleration has changed because its velocity went from 0 to whatever speed it reached without changing speed.

So the question is how many times has the velocity changed and what was the direction (greater or less speed) each time and how long did it take to achieve the change in speed?

Now, how can we use the size of the universe to determine its age if we cannot fully answer the first question? And since no one was around to observe the universe since the Big Bang, how can we honestly answer the first question?

Remember that acceleration can be positive or negative. Go faster and its positve. Go slower and its negative. And we cannot assume that the change was also positive or always negative.

You've got a good grasp of kinematics, but just this once, when the physicists say that "the expansion of the universe is accelerating", they actually mean "accelerating" as a typical non-physicist would understand it. If something is getting slower with time, even though it technically has a (negative) acceleration, you wouldn't say it's "accelerating" unless you were being technical.

Same here. The universe's expansion is getting bigger with time.

This diagram and accompanying caption from Wikipedia should help:

The age of the universe can be determined by measuring the Hubble constant today and extrapolating back in time with the observed value of density parameters (&#937. Before the discovery of dark energy, it was believed that the universe was matter dominated and so Ω on this graph corresponds to Ω_m. Note that the accelerating universe has the greatest age while the Big Crunch universe has the smallest age.

 

[busterdog]

Flaja, let me know if this is too boring. This is for your benefit. I infer that others are either enjoying these posts as one enjoys a Pinata or have to up their meds to avoid the kind of posts that would violate their terms of probation and court-ordered anger-management protocols.

Here's another article taking a shot at the Hubble model of expansion.

Is Relativity becoming more ”General”?

General Relativity which eschews any primary reference frame rests, ironically, on the above very earth centered assumption that the masses of elementary particles are everywhere just like the terrestrial values. But slowly it seems to me that we are more and more seeing different ways of expressing the supposedly all encompassing conservation equations of momentum and energy. For example, Olive and Qian1(Physics Today October 2004) show one mathematical representation where particle masses vary as a scalar field. In 2002 a book on Le Sage gravity 2(p.3) listed a sample of 10 different authors who considered physical phenomena from the standpoint of flat space time, no singularities and general distinction between proper time and universal time. The Michelson Morley experiment (1887) is now being interpreted in terms of an ether in a preferred rest frame (astro-ph 0311576).
The beginning of this change and clearest illustration of the trend for me, however, goes back to 1977 when Jayant Narlikar3 solved the field equations for particle masses as a function of time, i.e. m = m(t). Friedmann in 1922 had made the approximation m = constant in the differential equations before he solved them. His expanding space-time solutions were then not general. Of course, after the more general solution the approximation m = constant can be made locally to obtain all the usual tests of relativity. But in the realm of the galaxies, the non physical invention of curved space was needed to accomodate the supposed observational data that the universe was expanding.
This brings us to the conventional assumption of extragalactic redshifts as representing large recessional velocities versus the evidence for their being an intrinsic property of young matter. The key here is the rock upon which science is founded - the observations. Large redshifts differences are observed between whole extragalactic objects which are at the same distance. Intrinsic redshifts are required. But now what is the consequence of having low mass fundamental particles? It is simply that low mass electrons transitioning between atomic orbits will emit and absorb lower energy photons, i.e. they will appear redshifted compared to atoms with heavier particles.
What Narlikar showed is that the rigorous solution of the field equations (which in flat space are simply conservation of energy/momentum) requires the elementary particles to gain mass as m = t2. This actually requires that galaxies all born at the same time show a scatter free Hubble relation matching the observed slope of about 50 km/se/Mpc.4 Moreover, as we shall discuss briefly in the next section, it predicts that extragalactic objects should have high intrinsic redshifts when they are young and lose their excess redshift as they age.

http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/is_physics_changing

Three points follow from the above:

1. Halton Arp is associated with the Max Planck Institute and he says big bang is fraught with theoretical problems. The expansion model you question is exactly what he is taking aim at. So, hold you head up, fellow dissident. You are in good company.

2. The hubble model is based upon assumptions that nothing ever has changed between earth and the stars we watched since the light we observed let loose. As Arp says, lots changes, or can change. So, scientific assumptions make wonderfully elegant theories, but those of us who don't buy them are not the embarassing social outcast, cretin branch of this family of Christians who like to look at science. He says mass varies. The energies vary -- not just velocity. Thus, the color of the light is affected and caused by instrinsic properties of the star, not velocity. Thus, redshift, which is one leg of the Big Bang concept, is quite suspect as a reliable measure of velocity.

3. Was this a trick by a higher power, or did humans just get too hasty? Probably the humans were just too hasty. Not sure if you have seen this argument before, but the frequent argument here is that a. God can't lie, so he wouldn't "trick" scientists with redshifted light, rocks, etc; b. since the redshifted light is gospel truth, then the words of Genesis must be something besides literal truth. This is a poor argument, but it doesn't go away.

 

[notto]

busterdog associates knowledge and truth with anger.
I can't say I'm really surprised.

busterdog, you do realize that flaja is misinformed an quite a few things, right?

Do you think those should go uncorrected?

Do YOU think that temperature can affect decay rates?

Maybe you could clear up his false statements creationist to creationist (or you could suggest he up his meds because he is clearly delusional when it comes to some of his 'facts').

 

[Tinker Grey]

Maybe you could clear up her false statements creationist to creationist (or you could suggest she up her meds because she is clearly delusional when it comes to some of her 'facts').

According to flaja's icon, he is male.

 

[birdan]

2. The hubble model is based upon assumptions that nothing ever has changed between earth and the stars we watched since the light we observed let loose. As Arp says, lots changes, or can change. So, your assumptions make wonderfully elegant theories, but those of us who don't buy them are not the embarassing social outcast, cretin branch of this family of Christians who like to look at science. He says mass varies. The energies vary -- not just velocity. Thus, the color of the light is affected and caused by instrinsic properties of the star, not velocity. Thus, redshift, which is one leg of the Big Bang concept, is quite suspect as a reliable measure of velocity.

What I gathered from your excerpt is that "young" matter will tend to be energetically redshifted. How come we observe young star clusters (star factories) in our own Milky Way but do not see this redshift? Or is he talking about something entirely different?

 

[shernren]

Flaja, let me know if this is too boring. This is for your benefit. I infer that others are either enjoying these posts as one enjoys a Pinata or have to up their meds to avoid the kind of posts that would violate their terms of probation and court-ordered anger-management protocols.

Way to go for starting your post with a pointless personal attack. Motes and beams, anyone?

Here's another article taking a shot at the Hubble model of expansion.

http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/is_physics_changing

Three points follow from the above:

1. Halton Arp is associated with the Max Planck Institute and he says big bang is fraught with theoretical problems. The expansion model you question is exactly what he is taking aim at. So, hold you head up, fellow dissident. You are in good company.

But gosh, the Evil Atheist Conspiracy has had 24 years to flush him out and they haven't? ... This makes your thesis that dissenting academics are being silenced so very convincing.

(As it is, no astronomer denies that Arp did good work in the past - they just understand that his ideas in present don't really work. Who's personally-attacking who now?)

2. The hubble model is based upon assumptions that nothing ever has changed between earth and the stars we watched since the light we observed let loose. As Arp says, lots changes, or can change. So, your assumptions make wonderfully elegant theories, but those of us who don't buy them are not the embarassing social outcast, cretin branch of this family of Christians who like to look at science. He says mass varies. The energies vary -- not just velocity. Thus, the color of the light is affected and caused by instrinsic properties of the star, not velocity. Thus, redshift, which is one leg of the Big Bang concept, is quite suspect as a reliable measure of velocity.

I was talking to Brian Schmidt about precisely this last night, and his response was illuminating. He turned to me, grabbed me by the collar, demanded to know if I had been speaking with Setterfield and Arp, and warned me never to go anywhere near them again, at pain of expulsion from ANU -

- not. He furrowed his brows and thought for a moment, and after a brief explanation of the concept (he probably assumed I didn't fully understand it) he said the standard scientists' answer about theories like this:

"Well, there's just so much evidence those guys can't explain!" (emphasis spoken by him)

He brought up, for example, the spectral distribution and time evolution of Type Ia supernovae. Astronomers can track these to within a few percent accuracy from beginning to peak to end. And their distance is well correlated with their redshift. He finished off (before retiring for the night; nobody else had hung around that long) by saying "Well it's all fine and good to explore these theories. It's good to raise new physics - as if my "acceleration of the expansion of the universe" was standard back in 2003! But at some point these guys simply have to admit that they're not getting anywhere, and their theory is getting too ugly and complicated and bulky to replace the models they're trying to replace. For me the nail is so deep into the coffin that nobody should really bother."

There we go. A scientist looks at the evidence and concludes that intrinsic redshift can't handle it, simple as that. No personal attacks, no vendetta or agenda, not even the slightest hint of anger. Just - intrinsic redshift really isn't good science.

3. Was this a trick by a higher power, or did humans just get too hasty? Probably the humans were just too hasty.

That's too true - so, busterdog, you should be less hasty, and you should check the facts before running off with any anti-establishment conspiracy theory that tickles your ears without any real evidence to show or predictions to test (that haven't already been shown false).

Because if you did, you would have noticed this howler:

... This actually requires that galaxies all born at the same time show a scatter free Hubble relation matching the observed slope of about 50 km/se/Mpc. ...

Point 4. Halton Arp is plain wrong and his theories don't work. Why? Because the observed slope isn't 50km/s/Mpc. Nobody's believed that value for the Hubble constant since the really late '90s; Halton seems not to know that all recent measurements (and I mean past two or three years recent, not yesterday recent) have put the Hubble constant at around 70km/s/Mpc, with the lowest possible value from the data being around 63. So Arp's using a value of H_0 which is 10 years old and 25% off and he's happy that his pet theories predict that?

I can't emphasize enough how hilarious that is to someone studying physics. It would be like you trying to convince us that Setterfield's ZPE theories are correct because they predict that water freezes at -10 degrees Celsius.

 

[busterdog]

Because if you did, you would have noticed this howler:

Point 4. Halton Arp is plain wrong and his theories don't work. Why? Because the observed slope isn't 50km/s/Mpc. Nobody's believed that value for the Hubble constant since the really late '90s; Halton seems not to know that all recent measurements (and I mean past two or three years recent, not yesterday recent) have put the Hubble constant at around 70km/s/Mpc, with the lowest possible value from the data being around 63. So Arp's using a value of H_0 which is 10 years old and 25% off and he's happy that his pet theories predict that?

So, there is zero dissent in academic circles about this figure for the hubble constant?

(And I stand by my comments that you take as "personal attack.")

 

[shernren]

(And I stand by my comments that you take as "personal attack.")

So which am I? The pinata smasher or the guy on meds?

So, there is zero dissent in academic circles about this figure for the hubble constant?

Hubble Key Project - H0 measurements vs distance; as you can see from the bottom section, they all average out at 70km/s/Mpc.

Even from the '70s it is clearly obvious on this graph that the average value of all the Hubble constant measurements was a lot closer to 70 than to 50, unless one somehow invents some sort of systematic error that was shifting every single data point 20km/s/Mpc too high.

WMAP data in 2003 and 2006 put the Hubble constant around 70km/s/Mpc.

Observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory put it at 77 +/- 15% - between 65.5 and 88.6.

Can you find me any source in this century (besides Arp) who claims, with data, that the Hubble constant is 50km/s/Mpc?

 

[busterdog]

So which am I? The pinata smasher or the guy on meds?

A "howler" sounds more like the pinata smasher.

For a long time, creation science has been greeted here with mockery or angry indignation. I actually posted it while making extensive use of the ignore list and addressed it to no person in particular.

Apparently at the time the hubble revision was presented, they ignored published data on spiral galaxies and added others with excess redshift components.

See "Arguments for a Hubble constant near Ho = 55" ApJ 571, 615, 2002.

Apparently they also "corrected" their data under the pretext that there were peculiar motions in the excess redshifts.

Coincidently the 1 Oct. ApJ has a paper on intrinsic redshifts by Morley Bell where he mentions he obtains Ho = 58.

Someone named Sandage was also excluded from input.

Obviously, someone is helping me a bit with the references and basis for response.

I note that you went after a peripheral issue in the Arp article to try to discredit him. It certainly was not the main point of the discussion. But the argument was that on a minor point used for corroboration, he was ignorant. Not wrong or an informed dissenter, but ignorant, I think was the inference at least. Outdated is sort of the same idea. But, this is the usual method of attack.

Lets just look at what a hubble constant involves -- a selection of representative data to measure expansion.

Hubble's law is a statement in physical cosmology which states that the redshift in light coming from distant galaxies is proportional to their distance.

Now, I have no problem assuming for the sake of argument that the "modern" figure arose from good intentions. I don't know the people and I needn't prove a crime to make the point. Indeed, the very formulation of what this "meausurement" is tendentious enough that no one should be "howling."

One of Arp's main points was about major changes in very basic physics. He was using other sources to make his argument, not his own work. If an atom yesterday is unlike an atom today, why exactly are we betting the ranch on big bang?

Can you find me any source in this century (besides Arp) who claims, with data, that the Hubble constant is 50km/s/Mpc?