Static Universe

On Apr 18, 6:44*pm, Eric Gisse wrote:
On Apr 17, 3:54 pm, Thomas Smid wrote:

Sure, all observations should comply with the suggested model, but the
point is that, as it is, the *only* significant z-dependence of the
CMB temperature seems to be be associated with the different methods/
groups that obtained the data.

Observe how deftly the goal post has moved. Earlier the claim was that
this couldn't POSSIBLY be accurate because it was just one Earthbound
datapoint and a few neutral carbon datapoints.

Now the claim is that suddenly it is a problem when three methods +
local agree. Which is somehow a problem, rather than further
independent confirmation.

I have not moved the goalposts at all. They have already been moved
when the authors of these papers decided to draft in the results of
other authors in order to constrain their own measurements. Because
without this, they could not possibly make the case for a z-dependence
of the CMB temperature.

Thomas

On Apr 20, 11:41*am, Thomas Smid wrote:
On Apr 17, 10:54*pm, Thomas Smid wrote:









But anyway, as I said earlier, the analysis in these papers is based
on the assumption that the level densities are given by a Boltzmann
distribution, which would only be justified if the levels are both
populated and depopulated by collisions. However, as the natural decay
times of the levels are much smaller than the collision times (the
latter being about 10^10 sec), this conditions is far from being
fulfilled. The assumption of a Boltzmann distribution introduces
therefore a systematic error here which renders the data invalid in
the first place.

Thomas

[[Mod. note -- Your statement that a Boltzmann distribution "would
only be justified if the levels are both populated and depopulated
by collisions" is exactly backwards -- a Boltzmann distribution is
justified (only) if the levels are in radiative equilibrium with
the CMBR photons, i.e., if collisional excitation does *not* occur,
i.e., if the mean-time-to-collision is *long*.

No, simply a radiative equilibrium doesn't result in a Boltzmann
distribution. Required for this is a thermodynamic equilibrium, and
this a condition which is established locally. With the CMBR
originating from billions of (light)years away, it would be therefore
be a contradiction in terms to assume it is in thermodynamic
equilibrium with a local volume of matter.

Thermodynamic equilibrium is not required for a Boltzmann
distribution.

Please open an introductory textbook on the subject.


Anyway, as far as I am concerned, electromagnetic radiation should not
be able at all to directly populate an upper atomic level,

I have to admit, claiming that atoms can't absorb radiation is an
amusing approach.

as discrete
transitions resonantly *scatter* radiation but do not absorb it (and

Did you know the process of scattering of light involves absorption
then re-emission?

resonance scattering is a coherent (one-step) process and therefore
not associated with changing the level populations). The level can
only be populated be recombination (and subsequent cascading), or
electron impact excitation.

What?

You started off arguing that excitation was impossible. Could you
please retain internal consistency?

With regard to the latter, one can
estimate here the excitation rate from the density, velocity and
collision cross section: * the electron density in the referenced
papers is taken as about 10^-2 cm^-3; the electron velocity is about
10^7 cm/sec (according to an electron temperature of 100K); the

WHAT electron temperature?

The carbon is neutral. The electrons are *BOUND*, in case you don't
grasp the meaning of 'neutral'.

Coulomb collision cross section is roughly Q=e^4/(E*dE) (in cgs units,

What do you imagine is doing the Coulomb scattering when the gas isn't
a plasma?

where e is the elementary charge, E the collision energy and dE the
energy transfer). In this case we have to assume E to correspond to
about 10 eV = 1.6*10-11 erg (the kinetic energy of the atomic
electrons) and dE=3.2*10-15 erg (energy transfer corresponding to a
temperature of 20K), so Q=10^-12 cm^2. With this, the collisional
excitation frequency becomes nu_coll = 10^-2 *10^7 *10^-12 = 10^-7
sec^-1. And this is already an order of magnitude larger than the
excitation frequency due to the CMBR mentioned for instance in Ge at
al. (Eq.(5)).

Congratulations - you've established an irrelevant result. The gas is
neutral.

So even if the CMBR could populate the upper level, and
even if this would result in a Boltzmann distribution, it would be
insignificant compared to the electron impact excitation.

WHAT upper level? For the case of the neutral carbon, the excitation
is in the hyperfine transition at the ground state.


Thomas

What are you even hoping to accomplish here? The papers assume a
neutral gas, you assume the opposite. The papers assume conventional
electromagnetic theory, you assume atoms can't absorb photons. etc.

Thomas Smid wrote:
as far as I am concerned, electromagnetic radiation should not
be able at all to directly populate an upper atomic level

Do I understand correctly that you're saying that optical pumping
doesn't work? In that case, what provides the population inversion
in optically-pumped lasers?

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"
Dept of Astronomy & IUCSS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

On Apr 21, 7:46*am, Eric Gisse wrote:
On Apr 20, 11:41*am, Thomas Smid wrote:

No, simply a radiative equilibrium doesn't result in a Boltzmann
distribution. Required for this is a thermodynamic equilibrium, and
this a condition which is established locally. With the CMBR
originating from billions of (light)years away, it would be therefore
be a contradiction in terms to assume it is in thermodynamic
equilibrium with a local volume of matter.

Thermodynamic equilibrium is not required for a Boltzmann
distribution.

Please open an introductory textbook on the subject.

The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution is the only possible distribution
that depends just on one parameter, namely the temperature. This is
equivalent to assuming Thermodynamic equilibrium.

Show me a textbook reference that would contradict this.


Anyway, as far as I am concerned, electromagnetic radiation should not
be able at all to directly populate an upper atomic level,

I have to admit, claiming that atoms can't absorb radiation is an
amusing approach.

Where have I claimed this? Of course they can absorb radiation in case
of photoionization. But that is not of relevance here.
I

as discrete
transitions resonantly *scatter* radiation but do not absorb it (and

Did you know the process of scattering of light involves absorption
then re-emission?

This is a common misconception. Have a look at Heitler, Quantum Theory
of Radiation. He devotes a whole chapter to the theory of resonance
scattering and how this has to be understood as a coherent process
that exactly preserves the frequency of the radiation. It is pretty
much analogous to a mechanical driven damped oscillator (see
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/oscdr.html ); the
'transient' term here corresponds to the natural decay of the atom
(which has a given frequency and line width), whereas the resonance
scattering corresponds to the 'steady state' term which has a
frequency identical to the driving frequency.


resonance scattering is a coherent (one-step) process and therefore
not associated with changing the level populations). The level can
only be populated be recombination (and subsequent cascading), or
electron impact excitation.

What?

You started off arguing that excitation was impossible. Could you
please retain internal consistency?

I said that excitation by means of photons should be impossible,
because discrete states scatter photons (so they can not absorb them).
Collisional excitation by particles (and in particular electrons) is
obviously possible (both classically as well as quantum mechanically).


With regard to the latter, one can
estimate here the excitation rate from the density, velocity and
collision cross section: * the electron density in the referenced
papers is taken as about 10^-2 cm^-3; the electron velocity is about
10^7 cm/sec (according to an electron temperature of 100K); the

WHAT electron temperature?

The carbon is neutral. The electrons are *BOUND*, in case you don't
grasp the meaning of 'neutral'.

Coulomb collision cross section is roughly Q=e^4/(E*dE) (in cgs units,

What do you imagine is doing the Coulomb scattering when the gas isn't
a plasma?

where e is the elementary charge, E the collision energy and dE the
energy transfer). In this case we have to assume E to correspond to
about 10 eV = 1.6*10-11 erg (the kinetic energy of the atomic
electrons) and dE=3.2*10-15 erg (energy transfer corresponding to a
temperature of 20K), so Q=10^-12 cm^2. With this, the collisional
excitation frequency becomes nu_coll = 10^-2 *10^7 *10^-12 = 10^-7
sec^-1. And this is already an order of magnitude larger than the
excitation frequency due to the CMBR mentioned for instance in Ge at
al. (Eq.(5)).

Congratulations - you've established an irrelevant result. The gas is
neutral.

No the gas isn't neutral. There is some degree of ionization present.
Just read the papers (from where I took the figures for the electron
density and temperature in fact (see e.g. the Ge et al. paper)).

Thomas

On Apr 21, 6:05*pm, "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"
wrote:
Thomas Smid wrote:
as far as I am concerned, electromagnetic radiation should not
be able at all to directly populate an upper atomic level

Do I understand correctly that you're saying that optical pumping
doesn't work? *In that case, what provides the population inversion
in optically-pumped lasers?


Photionization and subsequent electron impact exciation or
recombination (although the latter would probably usually be
negligible unless for very high radiation intensities).

Thomas

On Apr 25, 1:41*pm, Thomas Smid wrote:
On Apr 21, 7:46*am, Eric Gisse wrote:

On Apr 20, 11:41*am, Thomas Smid wrote:
No, simply a radiative equilibrium doesn't result in a Boltzmann
distribution. Required for this is a thermodynamic equilibrium, and
this a condition which is established locally. With the CMBR
originating from billions of (light)years away, it would be therefore
be a contradiction in terms to assume it is in thermodynamic
equilibrium with a local volume of matter.

Thermodynamic equilibrium is not required for a Boltzmann
distribution.

Please open an introductory textbook on the subject.

The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution is the only possible distribution
that depends just on one parameter, namely the temperature. This is
equivalent to assuming Thermodynamic equilibrium.

Show me a textbook reference that would contradict this.

"Statistical and Thermal Physics", Reif (1965)

Section 9.4 (page 343) - Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics. The derivation
via the partition function method makes no reference to your
constraint of thermodynamics equilibrium in the gas, as the derivation
is predicated purely on how the states are counted. Which is no
surprise to me.

Perhaps you'd care to show how non-equilibrium conditions would impact
the way you count the microstates in a gas?

[...]

I said that excitation by means of photons should be impossible,
because discrete states scatter photons (so they can not absorb them).
Collisional excitation by particles (and in particular electrons) is
obviously possible (both classically as well as quantum mechanically).

You need to read the references given to you.

For example, Siranand (2000), as you obviously missed all 5 pages of
the paper where both thermal broadening (why the local conditions
needed to be known) and collisional excitations (again, local
conditions) were discussed in rather intricate detail.

Or another example, arXiv:1012.3164v1 which discussed using CO because
kT_cmb would be close to the energy levels of rotation allowing for
direct excitation (thank you again, Doppler broadening). References
are provided within for observations using that method.

It also discussed the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect which I have not seen
you discuss in any reasonable detail.

[...]

No the gas isn't neutral. There is some degree of ionization present.

In Siranand (2000), it was found that the ratio of electrons to
Hydrogen atoms is 0.001.

With a 1000:1 ratio of neutral atoms to electrons, what do you think
is going to dominate the dynamics? The bulk behavior of neutral
species, or the parts-per-thousand ions?

Of course that's just Siranand (2000), because that's the one article
I have on hand. There are plenty others which argue direct excitation
from the CMB in both neutral carbon and CO species.

Just read the papers (from where I took the figures for the electron
density and temperature in fact (see e.g. the Ge et al. paper)).

Thomas

So how many papers need to produce a result that contradicts your
theory before you change your mind? Try to use the answer you would
have used before, when you were arguing about the small amount of data
points.

Don't forget the S-Z effect results as well.

On Apr 26, 8:31*am, Eric Gisse wrote:
On Apr 25, 1:41*pm, Thomas Smid wrote:

The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution is the only possible distribution
that depends just on one parameter, namely the temperature. This is
equivalent to assuming Thermodynamic equilibrium.

Show me a textbook reference that would contradict this.

"Statistical and Thermal Physics", Reif (1965)

Section 9.4 (page 343) - Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics. The derivation
via the partition function method makes no reference to your
constraint of thermodynamics equilibrium in the gas, as the derivation
is predicated purely on how the states are counted. Which is no
surprise to me.

Perhaps you'd care to show how non-equilibrium conditions would impact
the way you count the microstates in a gas?

Why do you assume that counting the microstates in a system always
gives you a Boltzmann distribution?

You only have a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution if you have effectively
a closed system i.e. no net energy sources or sinks. So while elastic
collisions will always tend to create a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution
(because energy is locally conserved here), inelastic collisions or
other processes that lead to local energy gains or losses won't (I
have explained this in more detail on my web page
http://www.plasmaphysics.org.uk/maxwell.htm ). So anything to do with
radiative processes will tend to lead to a deviation from a Maxwell-
Boltzmann distribution as radiation can relatively easily enter or
escape the gas (after all, if no radiation would be escaping, we
wouldn't know anything about the universe). And if the timescale for
radiative processes is much smaller than those for collisional
processes, the resulting distribution function won't be anything like
a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution.

And that doesn't even address the problem I mentioned regarding the
radiative excitation of bound states (which in my opinion should not
be possible at all, as radiation should be (coherently) resonantly
scattered by those states but not absorbed).


I said that excitation by means of photons should be impossible,
because discrete states scatter photons (so they can not absorb them).
Collisional excitation by particles (and in particular electrons) is
obviously possible (both classically as well as quantum mechanically).

You need to read the references given to you.

For example, Siranand (2000), as you obviously missed all 5 pages of
the paper where both thermal broadening (why the local conditions
needed to be known) and collisional excitations (again, local
conditions) were discussed in rather intricate detail.

I have given an explicit numerical calculation a few posts above
which shows that not only can collisional excitation by electron not
be neglected but that on the contrary they should be dominant compared
to the hypothetical CMB excitation rate quoted by these authors (in
that case I was specifically referring to the Ge et al. paper, but the
argument would be applicable to the other papers as well).
In these papers there is indeed no comparable explicit numerical
consideration of the effect of collisions at all. The authors assume
without any justification the existence of a Boltzmann level
distributtion and then merely do some hand-waving semi-quantitative
estimates to justify this assumption.


Or another example, arXiv:1012.3164v1 which discussed using CO because
kT_cmb would be close to the energy levels of rotation allowing for
direct excitation (thank you again, Doppler broadening). References
are provided within for observations using that method.

What do you mean by 'direct' excitation? The mechanism isn't any
different to the excitation of the other elements, and the excitation
energies are in those cases always of the same order of magnitude as
k*T_cmb (that's the whole point of it). Still, that doesn't justify
the use of a Boltzmann distribution. On the contrary, the CMB spectrum
near its peak is anything but exponential (it would only be
exponential in the Wien (high frequency region). So even if these
photons would be able to excite these transitions, they would not
result in a Boltzmann distribtion for the level densities here.

In any case, in this paper they don't discuss any collisional
excitation at all (and the calculation I gave above regarding the
electron impact exciation would apply here as well).

It also discussed the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect which I have not seen
you discuss in any reasonable detail.

You mean the blue error bars in Fig.4 of that paper? I wouldn't
exactly consider these as cnclusive evidence for a z-dependence of the
CMB temperature. The authors of the referenced psper (Luzzi et al,
2009,http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...909.2815v1.pdf )
apparently not either, because they insert in their plot the results
obtained by other methods for higher redshifts as well in order to
make this look relevant at all.


No the gas isn't neutral. There is some degree of ionization present.

In Siranand (2000), it was found that the ratio of electrons to
Hydrogen atoms is 0.001.

Yes, resulting in an electron density of 10^-2 cm^-3, exactly the
figure I used to calculate the electron impact excitation frequency.

With a 1000:1 ratio of neutral atoms to electrons, what do you think
is going to dominate the dynamics? The bulk behavior of neutral
species, or the parts-per-thousand ions?

Atomic electrons can only efficiently excited by other electrons
because heavier particles only transfer at best fraction of the order
m/M of their energy in an elastic collision. With a temperature of
100K in this case, that would only be enough for transitions of less
than 0.1K, but here 10K or more are needed

So how many papers need to produce a result that contradicts your
theory before you change your mind? Try to use the answer you would
have used before, when you were arguing about the small amount of data
points.

It is not a question of quantity but of quality. I know what kind of
papers are needed to convince me or at least force me to put my
thinking caps on. None of these papers do remotely qualify for this. I
don't know why they have been accepted for publication at all. They do
more harm than good with their misleading representation of poor data
on the basis of dubious or even invalid theoretical assumptions.
Unfortunately, these kind of papers are quite typical in observational
astronomy nowaday.

Thomas

for mods: is this better? fractionally rewrote some things.

On May 2, 2:09 pm, Thomas Smid wrote:
On Apr 26, 8:31 am, Eric Gisse wrote:









On Apr 25, 1:41 pm, Thomas Smid wrote:
The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution is the only possible distribution
that depends just on one parameter, namely the temperature. This is
equivalent to assuming Thermodynamic equilibrium.

Show me a textbook reference that would contradict this.

"Statistical and Thermal Physics", Reif (1965)

Section 9.4 (page 343) - Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics. The derivation
via the partition function method makes no reference to your
constraint of thermodynamics equilibrium in the gas, as the derivation
is predicated purely on how the states are counted. Which is no
surprise to me.

Perhaps you'd care to show how non-equilibrium conditions would impact
the way you count the microstates in a gas?

Why do you assume that counting the microstates in a system always
gives you a Boltzmann distribution?

You only have a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution if you have effectively
a closed system i.e. no net energy sources or sinks.

So it is impossible to have a Maxwell distribution of gas, say, in the
presence of a hot plate?

Interesting. Especially because this condition is not invoked in the
derivation of the distribution - just in how the particles are
distinguishable, largely non-interacting, etc...

So while elastic
collisions will always tend to create a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution
(because energy is locally conserved here), inelastic collisions or
other processes that lead to local energy gains or losses won't (I
have explained this in more detail on my web pagehttp://www.plasmaphysics.org.uk/maxwell.htm). So anything to do with
radiative processes will tend to lead to a deviation from a Maxwell-
Boltzmann distribution as radiation can relatively easily enter or
escape the gas (after all, if no radiation would be escaping, we
wouldn't know anything about the universe). And if the timescale for
radiative processes is much smaller than those for collisional
processes, the resulting distribution function won't be anything like
a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution.

And that doesn't even address the problem I mentioned regarding the
radiative excitation of bound states (which in my opinion should not
be possible at all, as radiation should be (coherently) resonantly
scattered by those states but not absorbed).

The thing is, you have not read the papers on the subject at all. I
originally saw this like a day after you replied, but then my computer
crapped itself mid-stride and I was too ****ed off about both what you
wrote and the circumstances to reply immediately.

The problem of how the states were excited via thermal broadening and
collisional excitation was explained. In the paper. If you are
complaining about it, you have either not read the paper or did not
understand what you read. I am personally leaning towards the latter
option given that the details are still quoted in the block of text
below this.

I am curious to know which option you will embrace.




I said that excitation by means of photons should be impossible,
because discrete states scatter photons (so they can not absorb them).
Collisional excitation by particles (and in particular electrons) is
obviously possible (both classically as well as quantum mechanically).

You need to read the references given to you.

For example, Siranand (2000), as you obviously missed all 5 pages of
the paper where both thermal broadening (why the local conditions
needed to be known) and collisional excitations (again, local
conditions) were discussed in rather intricate detail.

I have given an explicit numerical calculation a few posts above
which shows that not only can collisional excitation by electron not
be neglected but that on the contrary they should be dominant compared
to the hypothetical CMB excitation rate quoted by these authors (in
that case I was specifically referring to the Ge et al. paper, but the
argument would be applicable to the other papers as well).

It was not neglected, which was explained in the paper.

In these papers there is indeed no comparable explicit numerical
consideration of the effect of collisions at all. The authors assume
without any justification the existence of a Boltzmann level
distributtion and then merely do some hand-waving semi-quantitative
estimates to justify this assumption.

Since you have not read the paper, I would like to know how you
support this statement given how Siranand explicitly had to account
for collisional excitation to obtain the result.

Did you think the presence of temperature and density were just for
show, or do you think there was a calculation associated with them?


Or another example, arXiv:1012.3164v1 which discussed using CO because
kT_cmb would be close to the energy levels of rotation allowing for
direct excitation (thank you again, Doppler broadening). References
are provided within for observations using that method.

What do you mean by 'direct' excitation?

A question readily answered by reading the paper. I am noticing a
theme.

It is the difference between having collisions contribute a large
portion of the ionizing energy and having the CMB and thermal
broadening do it all by itself.

The mechanism isn't any
different to the excitation of the other elements, and the excitation
energies are in those cases always of the same order of magnitude as
k*T_cmb (that's the whole point of it). Still, that doesn't justify
the use of a Boltzmann distribution.

What distribution would you suggest, then? A largely un-ionized (thus
largely non-interacting) gas is going to have a Boltzmann
distribution. That is a fact of statistical mechanics, which you seem
to disagree with.

On the contrary, the CMB spectrum
near its peak is anything but exponential (it would only be
exponential in the Wien (high frequency region). So even if these
photons would be able to excite these transitions, they would not
result in a Boltzmann distribtion for the level densities here.

Who said they had a Boltzmann distribution? The two acceptable answers
are "just you" and "nobody other than you."

If you read Siranand (2000), you'll see that no such assumption about
the transitions were made.
If you read Notradame (2010), you'll see that no such assumption about
the transitions were made.

Also, if you read Notradame (2010) you'll note the usage of the CN
molecule within this galaxy to measure the CMB's temperature. So that
also demolishes your whineplaint about the method not being used
locally.

Note how frequently I say the word "read". Note I mean the literal
definition of the term - I do not mean 'guess wildly'.


In any case, in this paper they don't discuss any collisional
excitation at all (and the calculation I gave above regarding the
electron impact exciation would apply here as well).

The details of collisional excitation comprises about half of the five
pages of Siranand (2000). Do I need to go back and copy and paste
quotes?

At what level of unfamiliarity with the research do you have to be
before you acknowledge that maybe your opinion isn't as well founded
as you first thought?


It also discussed the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect which I have not seen
you discuss in any reasonable detail.

You mean the blue error bars in Fig.4 of that paper? I wouldn't
exactly consider these as cnclusive evidence for a z-dependence of the
CMB temperature.

An opinion that is unsurprising, at this juncture.

The authors of the referenced psper (Luzzi et al,
2009,http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...909.2815v1.pdf)
apparently not either, because they insert in their plot the results
obtained by other methods for higher redshifts as well in order to
make this look relevant at all.

Then you should be able to prove the data is not relevant, because the
alternative is that your claims are dead in the water.

Take ten minutes, download gnuplot, and fit T(z) = T_0 * (1+z) to the
data. Let the newsgroup know what you get.

I note the complete lack of commentary on the methodology. I guess
it'll take a few days for you to find a rationalization to dismiss the
data once you realize that the data does not support 'no expansion'.


No the gas isn't neutral. There is some degree of ionization present.

In Siranand (2000), it was found that the ratio of electrons to
Hydrogen atoms is 0.001.

Yes, resulting in an electron density of 10^-2 cm^-3, exactly the
figure I used to calculate the electron impact excitation frequency.

Curiously enough, that's the same value Siranand uses when calculating
the effects of electron interactions. You were saying?


With a 1000:1 ratio of neutral atoms to electrons, what do you think
is going to dominate the dynamics? The bulk behavior of neutral
species, or the parts-per-thousand ions?

Atomic electrons can only efficiently excited by other electrons
because heavier particles only transfer at best fraction of the order
m/M of their energy in an elastic collision. With a temperature of
100K in this case, that would only be enough for transitions of less
than 0.1K, but here 10K or more are needed

If you read the paper you'd note that collisional excitation provides
a portion of the excitation energy, not all of it.


So how many papers need to produce a result that contradicts your
theory before you change your mind? Try to use the answer you would
have used before, when you were arguing about the small amount of data
points.

It is not a question of quantity but of quality. I know what kind of
papers are needed to convince me or at least force me to put my
thinking caps on.

Your initial argument was that the measurements of the CMB were only
upper limits.

Then I give you data that gives error bars. You then argue all sorts
of dumb things, up to and including saying that a straight fit of a
constant temperature fits the data.

You then argue "but it is only a few data points! baaawww!" Then I
give you a more recent paper that has a large data set.

Next you argue "but there's no independent confirmation", which makes
me point out the three (3) separate methods. You also argued that
there was no local confirmation of the effect, which I neglected to
point out was not the case because Noterdaeme (2010) referenced using
CN absorption within the galaxy.

Now you are spouting arguments that make absolutely no sense
whatsoever. The things you say are discredited by the mere act of
_reading the paper_. So I conclude that either you are being actively
dishonest, or you have no idea what you are talking about. I expect
the truth to be a combination of the two choices.

None of these papers do remotely qualify for this. I
don't know why they have been accepted for publication at all.

Of course you don't. Because you are reduced to arguing the results
are invalid, because accepting valid results that challenge your
worldview just won't work.

They do
more harm than good with their misleading representation of poor data
on the basis of dubious or even invalid theoretical assumptions.
Unfortunately, these kind of papers are quite typical in observational
astronomy nowaday.

Thomas

I wonder if you realize how much restraint I have to display at your
hugely arrogant dismissal of more than a decade of observational
astronomy from a strong set of astronomers who produced results via
several different methods which agree.

On May 9, 3:57*am, Eric Gisse wrote:
I wonder if you realize how much restraint I have to display at your
hugely arrogant dismissal of more than a decade of observational
astronomy from a strong set of astronomers who produced results via
several different methods which agree.

Mr. Smid and I had a "debate" about almost exactly these same matters
in a sci.astro thread titled "Confused about redshift" (May-July
2006). In that thread, Mr. Smid advocated many of the same
misconceptions he advocates here in this thread. At the time, the
techniques to measure CMB temperatures and excitation temperatures
were presented, and the distinction of the difference between the two
had been made clear. I showed that local and high-redshift
measurements of the CMB temperature had been made using the same type
of technique (molecular excitation), and that the measurements of all
kinds were consistent with each other.

I suggested to Mr. Smid a paper by Silva & Viegas (2002 MNRAS, 329,
135) which explicitly discusses the radiation transport, and in
addition provides complete computer source codes to back up the
results.

Mr. Smid has known about these issues for over five years now, so it's
dismaying to see him advocating the same misconceptions today, as if
he completely forgot about past history.

CM

On May 13, 12:21*am, Craig Markwardt
wrote:
On May 9, 3:57*am, Eric Gisse wrote:

I wonder if you realize how much restraint I have to display at your
hugely arrogant dismissal of more than a decade of observational
astronomy from a strong set of astronomers who produced results via
several different methods which agree.

Mr. Smid and I had a "debate" about almost exactly these same matters
in a sci.astro thread titled "Confused about redshift" (May-July
2006). *In that thread, Mr. Smid advocated many of the same
misconceptions he advocates here in this thread. * *At the time, the
techniques to measure CMB temperatures and excitation temperatures
were presented, and the distinction of the difference between the two
had been made clear. *I showed that local and high-redshift
measurements of the CMB temperature had been made using the same type
of technique (molecular excitation), and that the measurements of all
kinds were consistent with each other.

I suggested to Mr. Smid a paper by Silva & Viegas (2002 MNRAS, 329,
135) which explicitly discusses the radiation transport, and in
addition provides complete computer source codes to back up the
results.

Mr. Smid has known about these issues for over five years now, so it's
dismaying to see him advocating the same misconceptions today, as if
he completely forgot about past history.

CM

For the curious, this is the thread in question:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.a...f5e7788a367320

Some things never change. It is kinda amazing to see the same people
push the same ideas year after year without any personal growth
whatsoever.

This touches something that personally irritates the hell out of me.
The theme of everything I have done or have wanted to do in research
has been covered the same ground and then some, at some point in the
past. Argh!

Lots of good references though. Your notebook, or whatever your
equivalent medium is, has got to be a lot thicker than mine.