Quasars are the Waterloo of LCDM theory.....

[Michael]

Let's see if Selfsim is big enough to admit his mistake now and lets see if you are big enough to admit that you just made up that .5=1 nonsense now.

Ya, I didn't think so.

 

[sjastro]

What happens now is I admit my rather silly mistake. Unlike you two I'm actually capable of admitting my mistakes and I didn't do the full calculations to check my statement in that case. That was in fact my fault, unlike the pure BS that you make up on a constant basis.

Let's see if Selfsim is big enough to admit his mistake now and lets see if you are big enough to admit that you just made up that .5=1 nonsense now.

Who are you trying to kid.
Admitting you make “mistakes” while simultaneously hurling personal insults at me indicates how “sincere” you are.
You are only admitting the “mistake” because even you can’t lie your way out of this one.
All your posts degenerate into lie fests because you can never admit of being wrong when your errors are pointed out.
Blaming me for your 1=0.5 fiasco is a case in point.

You made three separate calculations resulting in exactly the same “mistake” each time.
That’s because you think redshift is the difference in frequency.
Now you are trying cover up your incompetence by suggesting it was nothing more than an error in calculation.

The facts are Michael your incompetence shows up in every one of your posts, you are in no position of criticizing mainstream theory when you clearly don’t even understand what you are criticizing.
Your miscomprehension of redshift, like your “1=0.5” nonsense is only the tip of the iceberg.

Due to your continuing behaviour of being blatantly dishonest I also declare my future posts in this thread to be a Michael free zone.

 

[SelfSim]

Ya, I didn't think so.

So you think Britney is still hot and I won't admit to my past mistake of thinking she was?

 

[Michael]

Who are you trying to kid.
Admitting you make “mistakes” while simultaneously hurling personal insults at me indicates how “sincere” you are.

Likewise your repeated false statements about me only demonstrate quite clearly just how incapable you actually are of dealing with any specific subject. It doesn't matter which topic we discuss, you're constantly taking the thread *off topic* and making up stuff about the individual. Who are you to lecture me about 'sincerity' or integrity? At least I admit my mistakes which is more than I can say about you. You're like the Donald Trump of astronomy.

You are only admitting the “mistake” because even you can’t lie your way out of this one.

There was simply no reason to "lie" at any point in any of our conversations and I don't have to pretend to be right all the time.

All your posts degenerate into lie fests because you can never admit of being wrong when your errors are pointed out.
Blaming me for your 1=0.5 fiasco is a case in point.

That's just a great example of your complete lack of ethics. The only one that made any such statement is you, but you keep erroneously and unethcally blaming me for it. Who do you think you're fooling?

You made three separate calculations resulting in exactly the same “mistake” each time.

Nope. I fixed his math error and I simplified the formula too. The fact you keep repeating the same lie just speaks to your lack of ethics as well as the fact you hide behind an anonymous handle while doing it.

That’s because you think redshift is the difference in frequency.

It's the *loss of photon momentum* which we observe in the lab and it has nothing to do with "space expansion" which is why your theory is such an epic failure with respect to all the various distant observations I mentioned in this thread, starting with that lack of time dilation in quasars, the existence of mature galaxies as far as we can see, and heavy elements in distant galaxies that shouldn't even exist yet in such quantities.

Now you are trying cover up your incompetence by suggesting it was nothing more than an error in calculation.

Do you really think anyone believes that you're a mind reader? I simply didn't bother to do the math because it didn't look close to me. That's what I get for staying up so late. You won't even accept a blatant acceptance of my error, and you refuse to cop to your own dishonest debate style.

The facts are Michael your incompetence shows up in every one of your posts, you are in no position of criticizing mainstream theory when you clearly don’t even understand what you are criticizing.

Yawn. Since you can't deal with the topic, you constantly hijack every thread and bash on the poor messenger that dares to point out all the holes in your supernatural creation mythology. You can't handle the topic and we all know it.

Your miscomprehension of redshift, like your “1=0.5” nonsense is only the tip of the iceberg.

Even when I admit my mistakes, you continue to simply lie about me, you make up complete nonsense, and you continue to attack me. Why? Because you can't handle the topic, that's why. Nothing I might say or do could ever keep you from abandoning your personal attacks because you have no way to actually handle the topic. You're not fooling anyone. You avoid the topic, *every* single time.

Due to your continuing behaviour of being blatantly dishonest I also declare my future posts in this thread to be a Michael free zone.

I love how you folks handle you cognitive dissonance by blaming the person because you have no explanation for any of those observations. It's so obvious that you have no scientific defense.

Don't worry, I won't miss you, and nobody is going to miss the fact that you two don't have any logical or rational explanation for any of those observations that utterly obliterate your creation myth, starting with that lack of time dilation in distant quasars.

Your pitiful attitude is the whole reason we're stuck in the dark ages of astronomy. Go ahead and wallow around in willful ignorance for all I care, and use all the placeholder terms for human ignorance you wish. You have no real 'explanations" and everyone knows it, which is exactly why 95 percent of your beliefs are nothing more than placeholder terms for human ignorance and the other 5 percent is mostly "pseudosciece" according to the author of MHD theory.

In short, you're clueless by choice.

Bye.

 

[Michael]

So you think Britney is still hot and I won't admit to my past mistake of thinking she was?

That's actually pretty funny.

 

[SelfSim]

So in spite of the humour, Michael persists with two outright lies:

i) His claim that he "fixed my mistake": The only mistake I made was a typo and was acknowledged as being such, by myself, (multiple times over), and at the time, Michael even then accepted and acknowledged it as a typo (see here for one instance);

and;

ii) Michael's denials that his 'logic' did not directly produce the stunningly absurd conclusion that "1=0.5". (See here). Even worse however, was that he then went on, (for tens of pages), by continuing to attempt to defend this utter nonsense .. (ie: talk about not admitting his mistakes, eh? )

 

[Michael]

So in spite of the humour, Michael persists with two outright lies:

i) His claim that he "fixed my mistake": The only mistake I made was a typo and was acknowledged as being such, by myself, (multiple times over), and at the time, Michael even then accepted and acknowledged it as a typo (see here for one instance);

and;

I never questioned the fact it was probably a typo, or that your corrected equation simplified to the one that I used. You two however keep erroneously and unethically ignoring the fact that I *simplified your formula* and you keep making stuff up like the following nonsense:

ii) Michael's denials that his 'logic' did not directly produce the stunningly absurd conclusion that "1=0.5". (See here). Even worse however, was that he then went on, (for tens of pages), by continuing to attempt to defend this utter nonsense .. (ie: talk about not admitting his mistakes, eh? )

I didn't make any mistakes in that instance. I simply used a two letter variable *after* simplifying your formula. I clearly and thoroughly explained that to you two repeatedly and you both ignored it repeatedly while you keep falsely asserting claims that I never made. That's about as unethical as it gets and it's beneath you particularly. Sj-trump-o is obviously a lost cause, but you're not. If however you keep ignoring my use of a two letter variable name and the way that I used it in the *simplified* formula, I'm going to keep calling you out and pointing out the unethical nature of your strawman claim.

 

[Michael]

You know.....

You two aren't fooling anyone. Neither of you has a legitimate scientific explanation for that lack of time dilation in quasars, the maturity of various galaxies, h-alpha lines from galaxies where we shouldn't see them, the existence of such massive black holes in the early universe, or any of the scientific points that I made in this thread. You're both therefore reduced to continuously trying to blame the messenger for your scientific failures, and we all know it. You're blatantly hijacking the thread simply to avoid your horrible case of cognitive dissonance. Somehow in your twisted logic, it must be all my fault that your supernatural creation mythology bit the dust (literally).

 

[SelfSim]

You made three separate calculations resulting in exactly the same “mistake” each time.

Nope. I fixed his math error and I simplified the formula too. The fact you keep repeating the same lie just speaks to your lack of ethics as well as the fact you hide behind an anonymous handle while doing it.

Huh?
What on earth is Michael on about?

'sjastro' was referring to Michael's H-Gamma, H-Beta and H-alpha redshift calculations (see post#13)!

Michael's response says he 'fixed (my) math error and simplified the formula', when I wasn't even involved in the sub-conversation about the calculation of the H-lines!!!!!
And then he goes on to blatantly and falsely accuse sjastro of lying, (when as per post#13, clearly sjastro was correct), then abuse his ethical standards, then his choice of forum identity, as per web forum privacy rights?

The question now is, will Michael admit to yet another string of major errors, by firstly apologising to sjastro, and then to myself (for dragging me into this)?

Sheesssh!!!!

 

[Michael]

Huh?
What on earth is Michael on about?

My response was actually related to his previous false statement:

Blaming me for your 1=0.5 fiasco is a case in point.

I blame you both because you both keep repeating the same lie. Admittedly my response was a little confusing/sloppy, but my comment was not related to to the h-lines.

I didn't drag you into anything. I blame you both for perpetuating the same bald faced lie, over and over again, which you've been doing for months now:

ii) Michael's denials that his 'logic' did not directly produce the stunningly absurd conclusion that "1=0.5". (See here). Even worse however, was that he then went on, (for tens of pages), by continuing to attempt to defend this utter nonsense .. (ie: talk about not admitting his mistakes, eh? )

FYI, the real standard deviation (sigma) would be 0.5(sqrt(6)) which is in fact 1.2247+.

You are not innocent, you're as guilty as he is.

I spent 10 pages explaining and pointing out to both of you over and over and over again that I had already *simplified* your messed up formula and I simply used a two letter variable inside the square root sign which is clearly demonstrated in my very first correction to your error. The .5 is outside of the sqrt function, and the six is the only variable inside of it! You've both ignored my explanations, and you *continue* to ignore the fact that I had already simplified the formula.

The irony is the fact that the problem began because you personally could not, and would not *stick to the topic* and you immediately engaged yourself in a pure personal attack. The whole thing blew up in your face too because you messed up the formula. Instead of just admitting your obvious mistake and accepting my explanation, you've both continued to falsely accuse me of a claim that I never made, and you've essentially called me a liar for months on end! You've got no sense of decency. That's about as unethical as it gets, and you both continue to engage yourselves in personal attacks, while hijacking all of my threads, and taking them off topic.

You aren't fooling anyone. We all know why you keep derailing the threads. You have absolutely no logical *scientific* explanation as to why your precious creation mythology failed a simple time dilation test related to quasars, nor do you have any decent explanations as to why it failed all those other cosmological tests which I've cited in this thread.

You two owe *me* an apology for hijacking every thread you engage yourselves in, and for all the constant personal attacks. If and when I hear such an apology, and I see a change in your behavior, I might consider worrying about a sloppy response on my part, but not a second sooner. I'm not holding my breath waiting for you two to come clean over your .5=1 BS, nor do I have any illusions that either of you will actually deal with any of the *topics* under discussion. You can't handle the science debate.

We both know full well why you' have run from the topic. Your cognitive dissonance rears it's ugly head the moment you actually have to deal with those quasar problems or those "mature" galaxies, and those massive black holes in your theory. You aren't fooling anyone.

 

[SelfSim]

You aren't fooling anyone. We all know why you keep derailing the threads. You have absolutely no logical *scientific* explanation as to why your precious creation mythology failed a simple time dilation test related to quasars ...

From a survey of papers published since the 2010 Hawkins paper (referred to in the OP), it appears that there is a serious issue which demonstrates that the period of measured quasar light curves, may actually be random.

Where this is so, it is not possible to measure time dilation, and thus there is no case to answer in the first place.

 

[Michael]

From a survey of papers published since the 2010 Hawkins paper (referred to in the OP), it appears that there is a serious issue which demonstrates that the period of measured quasar light curves, may actually be random.

Care to cite a few of those papers for us?

Where this is so, it is not possible to measure time dilation, and thus there is no case to answer in the first place.

Translation: "These aren't the (falsification) droids that you're looking for. "

It's standard operating procedure for your industry to attempt to sweep all your "failed tests" right under the rug, but as this thread clearly demonstrates, your theory fails every high redshift observation imaginable in spectacular fashion.

Not only don't quasars show any signs at all of time dilation as LCDM predicts, ancient galaxies are far more 'mature' than your theory predicts in terms of their size, their shape and their "dust" content. We observe h-alpha lines in distant galaxies that should still be obscured by neutral hydrogen clouds according to your creation mythology. Massive black holes exist far earlier, and with far more mass than your theory predicts. More importantly, your numerous lab tests for exotic matter have been the costliest, least productive "tests" in the history of physics, while the standard particle physics model has passed every conceivable test with flying colors, and it's now complete thanks to LHC.

Your 2006 lensing study was so riddled with massive baryonic mass estimate flaws, it's not even funny. You folks underestimated the number of whole stars in various galaxies in that study by between 3 and 20 times, and that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the problems with that supposedly "landmark" paper! Your industry *still* points at that absurdly flawed bullet cluster study as "evidence" (actually you erroneously used the term "proof" no less) of "dark matter", in spite of the fact that it's been debunked a half dozen different ways since then and all your lab tests have falsified every mathematical prediction about dark matter that you folks ever made!

It's unbelievable to me just how massive of a failure LCDM has been, both in the lab, and in terms of failed observational tests. Every failure is handwaved at, and immediately swept right on the rug, and you folks go right back to repeating the same old falsified nonsense.

Bah. It doesn't surprise me that you have to handwave at the evidence you don't agree with. Denial is tough nut to crack.

The bottom line is that your presumed "cause" of photon redshift has been falsified in numerous different ways, but you still cling to pure metaphysical nonsense. "Space expansion" isn't even a valid empirical claim or cause of photon redshift in the first place. GR theory *allows* you to stuff all sorts of metaphysical magic into a formula, but in no way does that demonstrate that magic is the cause of anything.

There's absolutely no evidence you can cite to support LCMD theory that doesn't first begin with special pleading, and/or ad hoc claims as to cause.

What good is a cosmology model that is 95 percent placeholder terms for human ignorance and 5 percent pseudoscience? There's nothing about it that actually works in the lab!

Why is it that you lack belief in God again?

 

[SelfSim]

Care to cite a few of those papers for us?

See: False periodicities in quasar time-domain surveys (S. Vaughan,1⋆ P. Uttley,2 etal. 2016)
and thence, the numerous studies they refer to within the text. Abstract reads:

There have recently been several reports of apparently periodic variations in the light curves of quasars, e.g. PG 1302−102 by Graham et al. (2015a). Any quasar showing periodic oscillations in brightness would be a strong candidate to be a close binary supermassive black hole and, in turn, a candidate for gravitational wave studies. However, normal quasars powered by accretion onto a single, supermassive black hole usually show stochastic variability over a wide range of timescales. It is therefore important to carefully assess the methods for identifying periodic candidates from among a population dominated by stochastic variability. Using a Bayesian analysis of the light curve of PG 1302−102, we find that a simple stochastic process is preferred over a sinusoidal variations. We then discuss some of the problems one encounters when searching for rare, strictly periodic signals among a large number of irregularly sampled, stochastic time series, and use simulations of quasar light curves to illustrate these points. From a few thousand simulations of steep spectrum (‘red noise’) stochastic processes, we find many simulations that display few-cycle periodicity like that seen in PG 1302−102. We emphasise the importance of calibrating the false positive rate when the number of targets in a search is very large.

Where so, the above removes the time dilation issue. Ie: where periodicity in a time varying light curve cannot be clearly isolated, (due to its random nature - explained by stochastic processes), time dilation also cannot be measured.

The above also goes a way towards explaining why the subject of the lack of time dilation in quasars (as per Hawkins' 2010 challenge) has disappeared in the last few years.

 

[Michael]

Um, I hate to break it to you but.....

Neither Hawkin's original paper describing the lack of time dilation in quasars, nor even the term "time dilation" appear anywhere in that paper. How does that paper actually help your case exactly, and how does it refute Hawkin's findings when it doesn't even mention his work, his findings or even the term "dilation" anywhere in the paper?

 

[sjastro]

Good paper SelfSim.
For some reason your link resulted in a "failed to load pdf document" error.
This link however works,
https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/38623/2/MNRAS-2016-Vaughan-3145-52.pdf

It's blatantly obvious to anyone who understands the relationship between period lengthening of a light curve and cosmological time dilation, that stochastic models and sinusoidal curve fitting techniques cannot resolve the presence or absence of time dilation.

It's obvious that Hawkins jumped the gun and explains your observation why mainstream have lost interest in the subject.

 

[SelfSim]

Good paper SelfSim.
For some reason your link resulted in a "failed to load pdf document" error.
This link however works,
https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/38623/2/MNRAS-2016-Vaughan-3145-52.pdf

(Apologies for the link not working ..)

It's blatantly obvious to anyone who understands the relationship between period lengthening of a light curve and cosmological time dilation, that stochastic models and sinusoidal curve fitting techniques cannot resolve the presence or absence of time dilation.

It's obvious that Hawkins jumped the gun and explains your observation why mainstream have lost interest in the subject.

Yep .. I think you may be right about that!
Hawkins seems to have assumed that the light curves he analysed were periodic when it has been shown for many, (where sufficient measurement data exists), that it is extremely difficult to distinguish periodicities from randomness in the curves. Hawkins (2010) employed fourier analysis to produce spectral energy distributions, which he then compared for differing redshift quasars. In the light of the Vaughan/Uttley 2016 etal paper, ('False periodicities in quasar time-domain surveys'), this would now appear to have been a pretty risky assumption. There are other recent papers which reinforce this viewpoint, too.

Its a pity Hawkins' paper was seized upon by so many crank amateurs and it clearly didn't attract the same following across mainstream professional astronomers.

 

[Michael]

(Apologies for the link not working ..)

Yep .. I think you may be right about that!
Hawkins seems to have assumed that the light curves he analysed were periodic when it has been shown for many, (where sufficient measurement data exists), that it is extremely difficult to distinguish periodicities from randomness in the curves. Hawkins (2010) employed fourier analysis to produce spectral energy distributions, which he then compared for differing redshift quasars. In the light of the Vaughan/Uttley 2016 etal paper, ('False periodicities in quasar time-domain surveys'), this would now appear to have been a pretty risky assumption. There are other recent papers which reinforce this viewpoint, too.

Its a pity Hawkins' paper was seized upon by so many crank amateurs and it clearly didn't attract the same following across mainstream professional astronomers.

Translation: "Ignore the fact that the paper I provided doesn't even once mention Hawkin's work, or even the term "time dilation". Anyone and everyone who cites Hawkin's work is going to be personally attacked (crank), and we're going to sweep all of our numerous and serious scientific problems right under the rug, just like all the points that are mentioned in this thread."

You two are entirely predictable. Not once did you offer a real rebuttal to the work I actually cited or point out any specific problems in Hawkin's paper. Your so called 'rebuttal" paper doesn't even mention time dilation, or Hawkin's work at all. At best it simply suggests one has to be 'careful' in their analysis of quasars, but you've shown no evidence that Hawkin wasn't careful in the first place!

You didn't get *anything* right at higher redshifts, not the lack of maturity of distant galaxies, not the reionization predictions of your pathetic model, not the time dilation observations, not the black hole sizes. Your model got nothing right. Nothing about your model predicts the correct outcome as we look further back in time. It all suggests that your core "assumption", specifically that "space expansion" is a real cause of photon redshift isn't a rational interpretation of that observation. Do you care? Of course not. All you two care about is attacking the messenger because the messenger dared to point out the irrational nature of your creation mythology.

It's bad enough that you're reduced to promoting a model that is 95 percent invisible supernatural nonsense, and 5 percent pseudoscience, but most damning of all, it fails every observational test at higher redshifts, including the fact that expansion models fail the surface brightness tests at higher redshifts too:

No Expanding Universe? The Problem Of Galactic Surface Brightness

There's absolutely nothing about your model that passes any tests at higher redshifts. Add to that the fact that your dark matter snipe hunt has been the costliest, least productive search in the history of physics. LHC not only completed the standard particle physics model and demonstrated the incredible accuracy of the standard particle physics model, it outright falsified every popular exotic matter theory ever proposed. You can't even cite a single observation from LHC that even supports the concept of of exotic matter, and every other exotic matter experiment has utterly failed to find even a hint of exotic forms of matter, including the Xenon-1T and LUX experiments.

I guess that's why you're reduced to personally attacking anyone who points out the outrageous number of serious problems in your model. You've got nothing else to offer.

Somehow you still believe that SN1A events are "standard candles", even when they've been shown to *not* be nearly as standard a you folks first claimed.

A Problem with ‘Standard Candles’?

There's literally nothing left standing of your model as we look further back in time, and it's only going to get worse once the Webb telescope starts returning images of mature galaxies as far back in time as we can see.

The LCDM model of cosmology is utterly *useless* at making any actual "predictions". Everything about it is postdicted and ad hoc, and it fails more tests than it passes.

 

[sjastro]

(Apologies for the link not working ..)

Yep .. I think you may be right about that!
Hawkins seems to have assumed that the light curves he analysed were periodic when it has been shown for many, (where sufficient measurement data exists), that it is extremely difficult to distinguish periodicities from randomness in the curves. Hawkins (2010) employed fourier analysis to produce spectral energy distributions, which he then compared for differing redshift quasars. In the light of the Vaughan/Uttley 2016 etal paper, ('False periodicities in quasar time-domain surveys'), this would now appear to have been a pretty risky assumption. There are other recent papers which reinforce this viewpoint, too.

Its a pity Hawkins' paper was seized upon by so many crank amateurs and it clearly didn't attract the same following across mainstream professional astronomers.

The Hawkins paper is here.
The data is gathered from two main sources.
(1) Photographic plates from the UK Schmidt Telescope at the Anglo Australian Telescope in the period 1975-2002.
(2) The MACHO survey designed to measure micro lensing effects in the Magellanic Clouds.

As any amateur photometrist would tell you the use of photographic emulsions to measure light variations that was used in (1) is vastly inferior to CCD technology.
Photographic emulsions suffer from reciprocity failure in the long exposures required for imaging Quasars resulting in noisier images increasing the risk of photometric errors as recognized by Hawkins.

Since Hawkins believes that micro lensing is a potential cause for the absence of time dilation, the MACHO survey is probably not surprising to the author.

Hawkins states explicitly the lack of time dilation does not support a static Universe a fact that seems to be conveniently omitted by armchair pet theorists who are only interested in cherry picking the good bits.

Needless to say the Hawkins paper is at least seven years old and has been replaced by modern research which tells a different story.

If there is any interest I will discuss the mathematical connection between an expanding Universe and cosmological time dilation which leads to a physical interpretation for cosmological time dilation.

 

[Michael]

Since Hawkins believes that micro lensing is a potential cause for the absence of time dilation, the MACHO survey is probably not surprising to the author.

When you have to resort to claiming that every single quasar in the universe is magically positioned in exactly the right way to cause 'microlensing" to affect the light that is reaching the Earth, you know you're grasping at straws for an explanation. Sheesh. That's about as desperate as it gets. Talk about special pleading and miracles galore.

Needless to say the Hawkins paper is at least seven years old and has been replaced by modern research which tells a different story.

Prove it. If that's true, then surely you can cite a paper for us that shows that quasars *do* show evidence of time dilation, right?

The supposed "rebuttal" paper that was offered wasn't even directly related to Hawkin's paper, it doesn't even cite or discuss Hawkin's paper, and it doesn't mention time dilation at all. That's not even a legitimate rebuttal of his paper because it's only really describing the difficulties of trying to tie quasars back to gravitational waves.

Let's see a newer published quasar paper that claims to have found evidence of time dilation.

If there is any interest I will discuss the mathematical connection between an expanding Universe and cosmological time dilation which leads to a physical interpretation for cosmological time dilation.

I'd be interested in seeing you explain the rest of those cited *fails* of the LCDM model, particularly why your model fails the surface brightness test at larger redshifts, and why those early massive black holes defy your LCDM model. Where's the math to support those supermassive black holes in the early universe? Citation please.

 

[SelfSim]

The Hawkins paper is here.
The data is gathered from two main sources.
(1) Photographic plates from the UK Schmidt Telescope at the Anglo Australian Telescope in the period 1975-2002.
(2) The MACHO survey designed to measure micro lensing effects in the Magellanic Clouds.

As any amateur photometrist would tell you the use of photographic emulsions to measure light variations that was used in (1) is vastly inferior to CCD technology.
Photographic emulsions suffer from reciprocity failure in the long exposures required for imaging Quasars resulting in noisier images increasing the risk of photometric errors as recognized by Hawkins.

Yep .. sure.

On top of the recognized variability issues in quasar light, many studies have also been based on small sample sizes with high sampling rates, (ie: detailed time series of just a few objects), or large samples with (very) sparse sampling, (ie: typically, of just a few epochs).
Just about all of the papers I've perused lately, mention that that there exists major statistical issues also such as irregular sampling, gaps in data series, and other more complex data issues to deal with.

On the intrinsic variability front, it appears that this covers the optical color and other spectral. These are 'aperiodic' and apparently change most rapidly at the highest energies. At the optical/UV wavelengths certain physical parameters vary such that one quantity increases when another decreases. (A list of such parameters I gathered from some papers includes: time lag, rest-frame wavelength, luminosity, radio and emission line properties, the Eddington ratio and estimated black hole mass. They all state that the physical mechanisms underlying the optical/UV variability remain unclear. There's a plethora of ideas about causes including instabilities in the accretion disk, supernovae influences(?), Hawkins' microlensing, stellar collisions, thermal fluctuations from magnetic field turbulence and other generalised 'Poisson' processes (whatever they might be .?.))

Since Hawkins believes that micro lensing is a potential cause for the absence of time dilation, the MACHO survey is probably not surprising to the author.

He doesn't seem to have raised the topic of quasars again since the 2010 paper, so I guess its possible even he may have also changed his initial views on microlensing being at cause, too(?)

Hawkins states explicitly the lack of time dilation does not support a static Universe a fact that seems to be conveniently omitted by armchair pet theorists who are only interested in cherry picking the good bits.

Yep .. I agree and I suspect the armchair cranks will also never allow him to change his initial views on possible causes either (because they're addicted to all the 'good bits'!?)

Needless to say the Hawkins paper is at least seven years old and has been replaced by modern research which tells a different story.

There have been so many survey papers since, its hard to name them all here!

If there is any interest I will discuss the mathematical connection between an expanding Universe and cosmological time dilation which leads to a physical interpretation for cosmological time dilation.

I'm interested .. feel free to go ahead (if you can find some spare time .. much appreciated).