The Age of the Universe

Michael · Jun 15, 2015

FYI, their "new and improved" 13.8+- billion year figure involves some additional 'tweaks' from Planck data sets, but it's essentially the same concept. Without the space expansion component, it really doesn't make much sense. Matter itself is limited to moving at the speed of light, so if objects themselves were expanding and moving, a 13.8 billion year old universe could not possibly be larger than 27.6 billion light years in diameter. Since they threw in a magic space expansion component, their mythical universe can be any size at all, simply by tweaking the space expansion component of the calculation.

RealityCheck01 · Jun 15, 2015

Michael said:
Unfortunately, no. ...

Unfortunately lots of nonsense included ("bait and switch" ) in this basically correct answer.
Answering from an implied position of ignorance ("for all I actually know") is bad, Michael. What you should know is the overwhelming scientific evidence that the universe is expanding means that it is not eternal or static.

Argument from outdated authority (Hubble) does not stop tired light theories from having fundamental flaws.

Despite periodic re-examination of the concept, tired light has not been supported by observational tests[4] and has lately been consigned to consideration only in the fringes of astrophysics.[5]

The best and comprehensive examination of the Tolman surface brightness test are the Sandage and Lubin papers

To date, the best investigation of the relationship between surface brightness and redshift was carried out using the 10m Keck telescope to measure nearly a thousand galaxies' redshifts and the 2.4m Hubble Space Telescope to measure those galaxies' surface brightness.[1] The exponent found is not 4 as expected in the simplest expanding model, but 2.6 or 3.4, depending on the frequency band. The authors summarize:
We show that this is precisely the range expected from the evolutionary models of Bruzual & Charlot. We conclude that the Tolman surface brightness test is consistent with the reality of the expansion.

These are 5 papers covering every aspect and difficulty of doing the Tolman brightness test.

Eric Lerner is a good plasma physicist. But UV surface brightness of galaxies from the local Universe to z ~ 5 paper has been basically ignored - after 1 year no refereed citations

RealityCheck01 · Jun 15, 2015

Michael said:
FYI, ...Snipped ignorance...

FYI the new and improved 13.8+- billion year figure involves fitting cosmological models to the WMAP and Planck data sets.

Argument from ignorance: Spacetime is expanding so objects are free to move even faster than the speed of light from us (Can objects move away from us faster than the speed of light?)

Michael · Jun 15, 2015

RealityCheck01 said:
Eric Lerner is a good plasma physicist. But UV surface brightness of galaxies from the local Universe to z ~ 5 paper has been basically ignored - after 1 year no refereed citations

Translation: The mainstream (and RC) simply ignore every result that does not agree with their preconceived beliefs. Multiple and expensive empirical tests of dark matter claims have all come up empty, and the methods that they used to calculate the need for 'dark matter' were all shown to flawed in multiple ways. Their dark energy claims were shown to be based upon a flawed premise about the nature of SN1A events. Their grandiose and ridiculously over-hyped public claims about inflation last year all turned to dust *before* those claims even passed the peer review process. The mainstream has a serious case of confirmation bias, and a terrible habit of simply ignoring the results of their own "tests" whenever it suits them.

RealityCheck01 · Jun 15, 2015

Michael said:
Translation: ...snipped lies form the guy who does not know what the word vacuum means!...

Making up fairy stories seems to be a constant theme from you, Michael, e.g. 6 November 2014 Michael: Fantasies about visible matter observations and dark matter need evidence
* The mainstream and I will ignore a paper that is obviously wrong!
If it was correct and showed that the universe is not expanding than the mainstream and I will accept it.
* Most expensive and cheap empirical tests of dark matter have shown that dark matter exists. SUSY candidates are essentially ruled out by the LHC. Some candidate have been ruled out by direct detection experiments. The observational evidence for dark matter makes any implication that the existence of dark matter has been falsified a lie.
* The scientific consensus is still that dark energy exists. Lying by cherry picking one pre-print does not change the consensus.

dcarrera · Jun 15, 2015

Doveaman said:
I was of the opinion that the 13.8 billion "years old" was calculated from the speed the light took to reach us from the farthest objects in the distance.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

This is wrong. The age of the universe is computed from the Friedman equation, which requires measuring the Hubble constant and the mass-energy content of the universe. The Friedman equation can be written as "da/dt = F(...)" where "a" is the scale factor of the universe (by convention "a = 1" at the present day) and "F(...)" is the Friedman equation. If we move some bits around we can write this formula as "dt = da / F(...)". Integrating both sides gives the age of the universe.

Gracchus · Jun 16, 2015

[serious] said:
It looks like you are conflating two distinct concepts. Relativity does affect time, but that isn't what gets to the 46 billion. From the relativity perspective, what we see when we look at a star a million light years away is what happened a million years ago. As we get further out, there is another factor that begins to dominate.That would be the expansion of space itself. This does not affect time as far as i know, but merely stretches out distance.

c = d/t Thus, at light-speed, the limit, c, is constant in any inertial frame of reference. Light can, if I remember correctly, travel slower; and even, for instance in Bose-Einstein condensates, even stand still. I could be wrong.

dcarrera · Jun 16, 2015

Michael said:
IMO the universe is infinite and eternal for all I actually know. The whole concept of expansion is based upon the idea that photons reaching Earth *never* experience any inelastic scattering on the billion light year long trip to Earth. That is simply not a tenable premise to begin with. The moment you allow for some amount of inelastic scattering to be the cause of at least *some* of that redshift, the whole need for expansion falls apart.

This is not true. We are perfectly familiar with Compton scattering. This effect requires high energies and it is important in X-ray astronomy, where you are looking at accretion around a black hole. It is worth nothing that (1) this effect is easily detectable because it changes the shape of the Planck curve and because it smears the absorption lines, and that (2) this effect makes light bluer, not redder.

Ponder this: Why would galaxies that look younger (have fewer heavy elements, have more gas, do not have a fully formed shape) and have dimmer type Ia supernovae (1) all happen to have Compton scattering, (2) that somehow makes the light redder instead of bluer, (3) and does not change the shape of the Planck curve and does not smear the absorption lines?

Another thing to ponder: How would Compton scattering produce other features like the Lyman forest? How would it explain Lyman-break galaxies?

Michael · Jun 16, 2015

dcarrera said:
This is not true. We are perfectly familiar with Compton scattering.

Why just Compton scattering? How about some of the other types too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inelastic_scattering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brillouin_scattering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raman_scattering

I get the *distinct* impression that all the mainstream is familiar with is Compton scattering and *only* Compton scattering.

Ponder this: Why would galaxies that look younger.....

The funny thing is, they don't necessarily look "younger" when we look further back in time/distance.

http://io9.com/5927315/hubble-has-spotted-an-ancient-galaxy-that-shouldnt-exist

"The fact that this galaxy exists is astounding," said University of Toronto's David Law, lead author of the study. "Current wisdom holds that such ‘grand-design' spiral galaxies simply didn't exist at such an early time in the history of the universe."

(have fewer heavy elements, have more gas, do not have a fully formed shape) and have dimmer type Ia supernovae (1) all happen to have Compton scattering, (2) that somehow makes the light redder instead of bluer, (3) and does not change the shape of the Planck curve and does not smear the absorption lines?

Another thing to ponder: How would Compton scattering produce other features like the Lyman forest? How would it explain Lyman-break galaxies?

Several authors have offered some suggestions:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0602500v1.pdf
http://vixra.org/pdf/1105.0010v1.pdf

Michael · Jun 16, 2015

Gracchus said:
c = d/t Thus, at light-speed, the limit, c, is constant in any inertial frame of reference. Light can, if I remember correctly, travel slower; and even, for instance in Bose-Einstein condensates, even stand still. I could be wrong.

You're correct that the speed of propagation is dependent upon the transmission *medium*:
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/02.18/light.html

Michael · Jun 16, 2015

RealityCheck01 said:
If it was correct and showed that the universe is not expanding than the mainstream and I will accept it.

No you won't:

http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-universe-not-expanding-01940.html

You won't point out a single flaw in his work either.

In situ · Jun 16, 2015

Doveaman said:
Why do scientists maintain that the universe is only 13.8 billion years old even though objects can be observed to be 46 billion light years away?

You are confusing distance with time..

dcarrera · Jun 16, 2015

Michael said:
Why just Compton scattering? How about some of the other types too?

Yes, other forms of scattering were discovered by physicists too.

The funny thing is, they don't necessarily look "younger" when we look further back in time/distance.

http://io9.com/5927315/hubble-has-spotted-an-ancient-galaxy-that-shouldnt-exist

What makes you say that it doesn't look younger? Are you telling me that this galaxy is actually depleted in gas and has an alpha/Fe that suggests a strong contribution of type Ia supernovae? Or do you just mean that it has pretty spiral arms? As the article says, the majority of galaxies at that epoch are irregular, so the discovery of one exception is super cool and interesting, but it is absurd to turn this into an age determination. If there was no correlation between redshift and age, there would be no correlation between redshift and galaxy shape. If redshift was caused by scattering, high redshift galaxies should have broadly the same statistics as low redshift galaxies.

Several authors have offered some suggestions:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0602500v1.pdf
http://vixra.org/pdf/1105.0010v1.pdf

The fact that someone can use a keyboard and post things on a public website doesn't make their words true. Now that I know that you are persuaded by an article on "vixra" promoting "tired light", I think I will disengage. Don't take me wrong. If I had infinite time I would be happy to spend some of it trying to explain to a tired-light proponent how science works. But I do not have infinite time, so I have to devote the time that I have to activities that have a higher chance of success. There is plenty of information online on the subject. That said, when there is a tired light model that fits all the observations of modern cosmology, and fits new observations that cannot be explained by the current model, I will change my mind and accept the new theory. Almost all astronomical data is public, so anyone can use it.

In situ · Jun 16, 2015

Michael said:
the 'claim' is that "space" does magical expansion tricks somewhere very inconvenient for humans to reach

No physicist has ever claimed magic as a cause behind why the universe expand. An expanding universe falls out as a natural consequence of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Unless you also regard physics as magic I see no reason why it should be considered a magical expansion, unless you think you can dictate what rules the universe ought to follow or behave accordingly to.

Redshift from distant start is an observational fact. Another observational fact is that redshift increase with distance. These observations are best explained as an effect caused by an expansion of the universe. (With "best" is meant that there is no contraction with any other observation - ever - made. Nor is there any contradiction with any other part of the standard model of physics, that means there is no contradiction with our basic and must fundamental understanding of physics. I.e. the very same physics that is taught in high school and undergraduate courses in science classes. Therefore this explanation, unlike others, does not require us to think that our fundamental understand of basic physics is, somehow, wrong and thus does not demands us to rewrite the text books in physics).

That said, you are free to reject any explanation in physics. Nobody force you to accept anything. However, if you want other physicists to accept the view that the universe is not expanding then you need to explain the observed redshift! I.e. what cause the observed redshift if the universe is not expanding?

In situ · Jun 16, 2015

dcarrera said:
you are persuaded by an article on "vixra" promoting "tired light"

The problem with the "tired light" explanation is that it ignores the "fine tuning" of the universe, due to ignorance or stupidity I dunno, but if light can get tired, i.e. it can change its speed, then this speed change will cause other effects that can be observed, however we do not see these effects. This implies the following (but not limited to):

1. Fundamental physics is correct, and the proposal of "tired light" is simply incorrect.

2. Fundamental physics is not correct then, in order for any physicists to take them serious the proponents of "tired light" needs to explain what is wrong with our basic understanding of physics.

In situ · Jun 16, 2015

Michael said:
No you won't:

http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-universe-not-expanding-01940.html

You won't point out a single flaw in his work either.

Interesting article. However, so far this is only some interesting observations which, if correct, needs an explanation and as such it is far to premature to claim the standard model with its expanding universe is incorrect. If you are using this article to argue that the universe is not expanding, then you are grasping at straws...

In situ · Jun 16, 2015

Michael said:
The whole concept of expansion is based upon the idea that photons reaching Earth *never* experience any inelastic scattering on the billion light year long trip to Earth.

No it isn't! Where did you get that incorrect idea from?

The reason physicists conclude the universe expand are as following:

As far as both Newton and Einstein models of gravity tells us a none expanding, i.e. static, universe is unstable and will cause all matter to collapse into a single object. This have not happen, nor is there any sign of this happening. On the contrary all evidence suggest matter is separating. Therefore, without invoking magic (which Einstein did originally to keep the universe static), the universe cannot be static and from the mentioned theoretical considerations, and as well the observational evidence, it follows that the universe must expand to keep matter separated.

Btw, considering if light had been scattered or not on its way to earth, a physicist can tell if that have happen by a careful study of the absorption spectrum. And this has been done...because it is the nature of scientist to do so, i.e. to check for alternative explanations. And they all failed to falsify the model of an expanding universe!

In situ · Jun 16, 2015

Michael said:
Eric Lerner applies what's called a 'surface brightness' tests on higher redshifted objects and shows that they are quite compatible with a static universe rather than an expanding universe.

So what? Those "conclusions" ignores the fact that an expanding universe is an intrinsic property in any decent theory of gravity (Not to mention one must ignores quite a significant, and well established, amount of observational data that indicates an expanding universe). In fact, in any model of the universe which includes a gravitational field or force you would need "magic" to keep such universe static. This is why it is unlikely that the universe is static. Is that really so difficult to understand or even accept?

In any case, what "magic" does Eric Lerner suggest to keep his universe static? Does he even suggest any or does he just assert out of thin air that the so called 'surface brightness' test suggest a static universe?

I would say anyone that suggest a static universe must not only ignore a waste amount of observational data to the contrary but also imply that our basic understanding of fundamental physics (which has been extremely well tested for its accuracy) is flawed. With current knowledge of today a static universe is as likely as a flat Earth, i.e. any one that claims a static universe has a lot more to prove than referring to some observational anomalies if they want to convince main stream physicists of such ideas.

JacksBratt · Jun 16, 2015

SpiritRehab said:
I think you misunderstood what I wrote.
I'm not denying that Gravity affects Light in Travel.
I'm saying it doesn't affect it's speed,
it affects it's velocity.

It's not the speed of light that's affected by gravity,
but time itself; which is why the clocks are not in sync at different altitudes.

So light can travel 10km of intergalactic space
in less time than 10km of stelar space;
because stelar space has more gravity
thus slower time.

Thank's for that explanation.

[serious] · Jun 16, 2015

Gracchus said:
c = d/t Thus, at light-speed, the limit, c, is constant in any inertial frame of reference. Light can, if I remember correctly, travel slower; and even, for instance in Bose-Einstein condensates, even stand still. I could be wrong.

light's speed is dependent on the media it is traveling through, but the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. Better?

The Age of the Universe

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