A problem with the analysis of type Ia supernovae

[Michael]

Try to bear in mind that this applies to an infinite static universe. Local irregularities are irrelevant.

Boloney! They're entirely relevant. There isn't another star to be found within 250,000 extra AU "shells". The brightness drops off by an inverse square law, and therefore there is no way in hell that even our closest neighbor, Proxima Centauri at 268,770 AU is anywhere near as bright to our eyes as our own sun. How can you even peddle such nonsense? Do you have any idea how childish that argument sounds?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Boloney! They're entirely relevant. There isn't another star to be found within 250,000 extra AU "shells". The brightness drops off by an inverse square law, and therefore there is no way in hell that even our closest neighbor, Proxima Centauri at 268,770 AU is anywhere near as bright to our eyes as our own sun. How can you even peddle such nonsense? Do you have any idea how childish that argument sounds?

<chuckle> Do you have any idea how petulant you sound?

You still don't get it - it applies to a universe infinite in temporal and spatial extent.

 

[Michael]

In order for Proxima Centauri to be as bright as our sun, it (actually they) would have to be 268,770^2, or 72,237,312,900 times brighter than our sun. Get real.

 

[Michael]

<chuckle> Do you have any idea how petulant you sound?

You still don't get it - it applies to a universe infinite in temporal and spatial extent.

It doesn't matter how you try to hide from the inverse square law, it absolutely, positively does apply. Based on distance alone, even our closest stellar neighbor could not possibly be anywhere near as bright as our own sun. Your denial of that fact doesn't change that fact.

 

[sjastro]

False. I explained why your math is wrong and incomplete. The age of the universe is irrelevant in terms of the light that reaches Earth in a scattering environment, and you made absolutely no provision for the inverse square laws.

The argument of personal incredulity and handwaving doesn't constitute a rebuttal only a reconfirmation the maths is beyond your capacity of comprehension.
The fact you go on incessantly about the inverse square law where this post refutes its application to Olbers' paradox and the Wiki article which gives a much simpler explanation is summarily dismissed on the basis you don't have the backbone in admitting your lack of knowledge and comprehension.

They got scattered and directed *away from the Earth*! Wow. Do you even have critical thinking skills? If so, I've never seen you use them.

Surely you are not that stupid are you.
Apart from the fact scattering angles are random we see scattered photons from the colour of the sky, to the astrophysical effects of interstellar reddening and extinction.
The lack of an infrared background in the Hubble ultra deep image blows your scattering nonsense apart.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It doesn't matter how you try to hide from the inverse square law, it absolutely, positively does apply. Based on distance alone, even our closest stellar neighbor could not possibly be anywhere near as bright as our own sun. Your denial of that fact doesn't change that fact.

You're firing blanks - nobody's denying the inverse square law and the decreased brightness with distance - they're what makes the paradox interesting

I had thought your daft idea of the universe being a 'cosmic brain' that used electromagnetic signalling was just an off-hand suggestion you hadn't thought through, but now it looks like a symptom of a deep lack of physical understanding.

 

[Michael]

The argument of personal incredulity and handwaving doesn't constitute a rebuttal only a reconfirmation the maths is beyond your capacity of comprehension.

You are clearly projecting again because I explained the relevant inverse square law math to you very carefully and very clearly in astronomical units and in terms of brightness, but apparently you can't follow it.

The fact you go on incessantly about the inverse square law where this post refutes its application to Olbers' paradox and the Wiki article which gives a much simpler explanation is summarily dismissed on the basis you don't have the backbone in admitting your lack of knowledge and comprehension.

The problem for you is that your Gospel of St. Olber is so flawed as to be utterly ridiculous, and you don't have the backbone to admit it.

Surely you are not that stupid are you.

I'm certainly not stupid enough to believe that Proxima Centauri is 72+ billion times brighter than our sun.

The lack of an infrared background in the Hubble ultra deep image blows your scattering nonsense apart.

You have no idea what you're talking about as my very simple math demonstrates. The inverse square law makes it *impossible* for even the various stars in our own galaxy to be as bright as our own sun. If you can't figure out that much, I simply cannot help you.

FYI, I wasn't the first one to figure out your problem. It turns out that Thomas Digges totally destroyed the Gospel of St. Olber before it was even written.

There's no way in hell that the next closest stars are 72 billion times brighter than our sun. That kind of brightness would require a whole galaxy to exist at a distance of 4+ light years, not just one or a few stars. You don't even begin to grasp the physics involved.

If you think I'm wrong, show us the error in my math.

 

[sjastro]

Irrelevant.

Odd that distinguished astronomer and cosmologist, Edward 'Ted' Harrison, devoted an entire chapter of his book 'Cosmology - The Science of the Universe' to the Olber's paradox 'nonsense' (see chapter 24).

"...developments in cosmology have made little difference to the riddle. In a universe of infinite extent, populated everywhere with bright stars, the entire sky should be covered by stars with no separating dark gaps..."
​

Seems like you are the lone voice - the St. John the Baptist, if you will - of cosmology

Nevertheless, I recommend a read of Chapter 24 - it's 22 pages of easy reading - it might have been written for novices and lone voices

Thanks for the link to Harrison, most informative.
Cosmology textbooks give a modernised account of Lord Kelvin's account to include the statistical outcome of scattering.

 

[Michael]

You're firing blanks -

No, I'm producing and firing real math and you're full of holes.

nobody's denying the inverse square law and the decreased brightness with distance - they're what makes the paradox interesting

The inverse square laws and vast distances don't just make it "interesting", they destroy the Gospel of St. Olber.

I had thought your daft idea of the universe being a 'cosmic brain' that used electromagnetic signalling was just an off-hand suggestion you hadn't thought through, but now it looks like a symptom of a deep lack of physical understanding.

Quite the irony from my perspective since your Gospel of St. Olber mantra shows an incredible and stunning lack of understanding of the physics and distances involved. You whined about distances then, but you throw the issue of distance right out the window in this case. Your arguments aren't even consistent.

 

[Michael]

Thanks for the link to Harrison, most informative.
Cosmology textbooks give a modernised account of Lord Kelvin's account to include the statistical outcome of scattering.

I thought the most interesting aspect was the reference to Thomas Digges. He figured out the logical and rational solution long before anyone even claimed that there was a "problem".

 

[SelfSim]

Meanwhile, (beyond Michael's numerous misconceptions), at CQ, it looks like there may have been requests other than mine to extend the thread timeout. They've obviously considered it and its now up to Davd (Crawford).

He has been suspiciously quiet in responding to JT (& RC)'s serious dataset issues and UT4Life's challenges to his logical argument. I hope he responds .. if not, then I think his SNe paper, along with his curvature cosmology, can both be considered as being 'non-starters'(?)

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Quite the irony from my perspective since your Gospel of St. Olber mantra shows an incredible and stunning lack of understanding of the physics and distances involved. You whined about distances then, but you throw the issue of distance right out the window in this case.

In both cases you simply haven't grasped the implications of cosmological scale.

And, as usual, when the flaws in your understanding are exposed, you resort to rudeness. It's a clear pattern now, and telling.

 

[Astrophile]

Even the fact that different stars shine at different intensities would preclude the whole sky from being exactly the same, but......



Ah, but that's absolutely not true. If I increase my "shell" from 1AU to 2AU, I don't find four more stars in the next shell. Even if I extend the shells out to 100AU, there are no more additional stars in those various shells. That's the core problem in the Gospel of St. Olber in a nutshell.

How far away do you think the stars are? At distances of more than a parsec the number of stars in a shell does increase approximately as the square of the distance. There is one star (the Sun) closer than one parsec, there are three stars or star systems (Proxima Centauri, alpha Centauri AB, and Barnard's star) between one and two parsecs, five stars or star systems between two and three parsecs, and 12 between three and four parsecs. This is in fair agreement with the predicted relationship.

Keep in mind that virtually all modern static universe models also predict photon redshift/distance, albeit not as a function of "space expansion".

Redshift would also resolve the problem of course, but even the distances involved, combined with the inverse square law, and the limits of human brains and eyes solves the problem, even if there were no redshift at all.

I specifically said that the reduction in the amount of light from increasingly distant shells was due to redshift; I didn't attribute it to the expansion of space. Also, the point of the calculation is to show that
in an infinite static zero-redshift universe the same amount of light is received from each shell, regardless of its distance. If one can detect and measure the light from the stars in a 1-parsec thick shell at a distance of a million light-years, one can detect and measure the same amount of light from a 1-parsec thick shell at a distance of a billion light-years, or at a distance of ten billion light-years.

 

[Michael]

In both cases you simply haven't grasped the implications of cosmological scale.

Quite the opposite. In the case of other stars, their distance precludes any other star in our galaxy from being as bright as our own sun, and in the cosmological case I realize there would have to be an FTL communication mechanism to explain a living universe, and redshift would be required to explain why white light tapers off with distance. It seems to me that it's you that don't seem to grasp the distance related "problems" in your "paradox" claims.

And, as usual, when the flaws in your understanding are exposed, you resort to rudeness. It's a clear pattern now, and telling.

My supposed rudeness is pretty tame all things considered. I can't even think of a thread in recent memory that wasn't hijacked by sjastro and/or Selfsim to engage in personal attacks.

 

[Michael]

How far away do you think the stars are?

In the case of our own star, that would be 1AU, and the paradox claim is comparing all brightness figures to that specific star.

At distances of more than a parsec the number of stars in a shell does increase approximately as the square of the distance.

More than a parsec? If you're comparing the brightness of other objects in the sky to our own sun, the various shells would have to be compared at AU distances, not parsecs. Our sun isn't a parsec away.

There is one star (the Sun) closer than one parsec, there are three stars or star systems (Proxima Centauri, alpha Centauri AB, and Barnard's star) between one and two parsecs, five stars or star systems between two and three parsecs, and 12 between three and four parsecs. This is in fair agreement with the predicted relationship.

Those distances are meaningless however when you're trying to compare the brightness of other objects in the night sky to an object that is only 1AU away.

I specifically said that the reduction in the amount of light from increasingly distant shells was due to redshift; I didn't attribute it to the expansion of space.

Ok, but that doesn't really apply to any shells related to our own galaxy in the mainstream theory. Redshift in LCMD wouldn't apply until you got outside of the local galaxy supercluster. The main cause of the relative "dimness" of Proxima Centauri is related to distance, not redshift.

Also, the point of the calculation is to show that
in an infinite static zero-redshift universe the same amount of light is received from each shell, regardless of its distance.

Then you should be creating your first few shells in AU's not parsecs because the paradox claim was that distant stars would be as bright as our own sun.

If one can detect and measure the light from the stars in a 1-parsec thick shell at a distance of a million light-years, one can detect and measure the same amount of light from a 1-parsec thick shell at a distance of a billion light-years, or at a distance of ten billion light-years.

Again however, the parsec distance concept is meaningless if you're using the brightness of our sun at 1AU as the basis of your comparison.

 

[Michael]

Meanwhile, (beyond Michael's numerous misconceptions), at CQ, it looks like there may have been requests other than mine to extend the thread timeout. They've obviously considered it and its now up to Davd (Crawford).

He has been suspiciously quiet in responding to JT (& RC)'s serious dataset issues and UT4Life's challenges to his logical argument. I hope he responds .. if not, then I think his SNe paper, along with his curvature cosmology, can both be considered as being 'non-starters'(?)

https://forum.cosmoquest.org/showthread.php?167525-Is-the-universe-static&p=2437266#post2437266

David doesn't seem to be anymore impressed with the various inquisition questions than I am. I think we should invite him here when the Spanish Inquisition routine runs it course.

 

[Michael]

By the way, the concept of describing "shells" is also a bit misleading at smaller scales because of the lack of uniformity of the layout of stars in our own galaxy and galaxy cluster. While their may be three stars in a couple parsec second shell, they wouldn't be distributed uniformly in the sky.

That whole concept really only "sort of" works at cosmological scales.

 

[Astrophile]

By the way, the concept of describing "shells" is also a bit misleading at smaller scales because of the lack of uniformity of the layout of stars in our own galaxy and galaxy cluster. While their may be three stars in a couple parsec second shell, they wouldn't be distributed uniformly in the sky.

That whole concept really only "sort of" works at cosmological scales.

Yes, of course, that is true. I was over-simplifying the problem.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

My supposed rudeness is pretty tame all things considered. I can't even think of a thread in recent memory that wasn't hijacked by sjastro and/or Selfsim to engage in personal attacks.

Another tu-quoque, and an egregious example of moral relativity - what you do is justifiable because you think they do worse...

It's the same fallacious justification you use when your cosmology is criticised - "LCDM is worse".

 

[Michael]

Yes, of course, that is true. I was over-simplifying the problem.

IMO that's the whole problem with the paradox argument to start with.

In a *best* case scenario, no point source in the sky could ever hope to be anywhere close to as bright as our own sun due to the inverse square law. Furthermore, the fact the galaxy itself is shaped like a disk means that the most that we might hope for is something that looks like that microwave image above. The galaxy itself would be (and is) brighter and more densely lit than the rest of the sky. Any point source that is not related to our own galaxy would typically be *far* dimmer than anything else in our own galaxy.

In a universe of infinite extent, populated everywhere with bright stars, the entire sky should be covered by stars with no separating dark gaps. Hence, when all stars are bright like the Sun, the entire sky at every point should blaze with a brilliance equal to the Sun’s disk. The sky is 180000 times larger than the Sun’s disk, and starlight falling on Earth should be 180000 times more intense than sunlight.

Emphasis mine.

That quote from Harrison's book (chapter 24) suggested that the whole sky should be the same brightness, and it said that the whole night sky should be as bright as the sun's disk. That's a false statement.

The inverse square law alone would necessarily prevent anything like that from happening. The next closest star is necessarily going to be 72+ billion times *less* bright than the sun's disk, and anything further away will be even less bright than Proxima Centauri. There's no possible way that the entire sky could be all one brightness, or anywhere close to as bright as the sun's disk. That's simply not physically possible due to the inverse square law.

Furthermore, our eyes and brains are not capable of "adding up" photons over extended periods of time like a camera, and they aren't 100 efficient either, so the most that we could ever hope to see with our naked eyes are the very brightest objects as Digges originally suggested.

In short, there is no "paradox". There's simply no possibility of seeing a whole night sky that is as bright as the sun's disk, nor could it all be the same brightness everywhere. That's just not possible.