Evidence for a static universe

On Saturday, December 10, 2016 at 12:52:27 PM UTC-5, David Crawford wrote:
On Saturday, December 10, 2016 at 12:08:49 AM UTC+11, w=
rote:
New to this thread, so please be patient.

David, in your paper you write "It is assumed that the central part of
the light curve could be modelled by a Gaussian distribution of the flux
densities as a function of the epoch differences." You then define (?)
your terms quantitatively, sorta, and your core method.

Why do you make this assumption? And what weights do you use ("A
weighted least squares fit ...")?

I wanted the simplest description of the curve that was reasonable. A
Gaussian in flux density is a parabola in magnitudes. The point is that
I am looking for redshift dependence and I am willing to sacrifice
accuracy for simplicity.

Thanks.

"simplest" and "simplicity" are not objective, are they? Aren't there an
infinite number of functions, fully defined by three values? For
example, a 3-value alternative to a parabola is a+bx^3+cx^5; why is this
any less simple than a parabola?

What tests did you perform to show how your choice of function (a
template choice) affects your conclusions?

All data is weighed by the given flux density
uncertainties converted to magnitudes.

Thanks. Do these "flux density uncertainties" come from your data
source? Or did you process that data in some way to derive them?

On Saturday, December 3, 2016 at 3:40:22 AM UTC-5, jacobnavia wrote:
Le 01/12/2016 =E0 22:24, The moderator wrote:
But convincing
people-who-don't-know-very-much-about-this-subject isn't a useful
endpoint -- you have to convince
people-who-*do*-know-a-lot-about-this-subject, a.k.a. "experts".

This is wrong. He can only convince the experts if he can publish his
arguments.

Since the problem is that the experts do not allow him to publish his
point of view, the experts can force people that have dissenting views,
like, for instance, say

A STATIC UNIVERSE

reduced to silence.

Since if you want to publish your point of view the experts must agree,
you can't even try to convince them!!!

[Moderator's note: Quoted text snipped. -P.H.]

[[Mod. note -- Given the internet and free-to-anyone archives like
vixra, one can hardly say that dissenting views are "reduced to silence".

By arguing that "respected journals" should accept the manuscript,
do realise that you're implicitly also asking their referees to donate
their own unpaid volunteer labor to review the manuscript. Different
journals have different editorial policies, and the author is of course
free to try other journals.

Moreover, given that experts generally have more than enough other
scientific activities to occupy them full-time, do realise that when
you write that "the experts should ... argue why the arguments proposed
are wrong", you are implicitly also asking those experts to postpone
other research projects to do this. I would prefer to leave that
proritizing of what-to-do to those experts. [N.b. I am *not* myself
an expert in this area.]
-- jt]]

jacobnavia: I know you said you are not an expert in this area, but did
you make an attempt to independently verify (reproduce) any of the key
parts of the David's document?

I'm quite curious about this, if only because I myself have - so far -
been unable to do so.

FWIW....see slide 38 of 56 showing raw data with time dilation.

http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~george.../Ay1_Lec19.pdf

Goldhaber et al paper

rt

In article ,
David Crawford writes:

I would like to ask you again to please provide data - or an explicit
pointer to such data - on two SNe (band, observed magnitudes, dates),
one with ~ zero z, one ~0.5, together with the "peak magnitude",
"width", and "epoch of maximum flux density" (or "epoch of peak
magnitude") estimates you derived from that data (uncertainties
would be nice too).

If you contact me on (remove the bird)
I could do this fo all the supernovae. However it may take several
days. David

While there were perhaps technical limitations in the old days, this is
no longer an issue. There is really no excuse for not making data
publicly available. In some cases (not applicable here) perhaps even
the code.

On Saturday, November 26, 2016 at 8:54:25 PM UTC-5, David Crawford wrote:
{snip}
I have two requests.
1. If the universe is expanding then my paper must have an invalid
argument. Can someone please tell me why it is invalid.

I, for one, cannot tell you why it is invalid. At least, not yet.

However, I could well understand why an appropriate journal would
reject it; I've asked some basic questions which might help.

Some more basic questions about your paper, David:
* in Section 2, your equation (1) is not an equation; what is the typo?
* in S5, you write:
"Using filter gain factors the width values from each filter were spread out
over the rest-frame wavelengths and averaged over all the observations."
What are "filter gain factors", and what source(s) did you use for them?
* I presume you did a literature search to see what other papers use
a Gaussian/parabola template, and the methods for estimating "width",
"peak magnitude", and "epoch of maximum flux density" (or of "peak magnitude").
What were the results of your search? Why did you not write a para or two on
the similarities and differences?
* throughout you use the term "flux density", but do not seem to state its units.
What units do you use? How is "flux density" related to "magnitude" in your
paper? Specifically, which magnitude system do you use?

2. Since the chances of being accepted by a reputable journal are
slim I would like to submit it to astro-ph on the arXiv. If you are
willing to endorse it please let me know at
(remove the bird).

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I would be very surprised if anyone
even somewhat familiar with the field would be willing to provide an
endorsement. At least, of the paper in its present form.

On Saturday, December 10, 2016 at 12:53:27 PM UTC-5, Eric Flesch wrote:


I was going to reply to wlandsman's point, but you've already done it
so well, Phil. Still, the notion that inflation can be "validated" by
estimating just the right amount of invisible material is provocative
at the least. I would call that "not science".

I would call it "extraordinary science". The models of inflation develope=
d in the early 1980s made a bold prediction that the universe would be flat=
(mean energy equal to the critical density), even though there was little =
empirical evidence for this. For example, Oldershaw (1989, http://www3.=
amherst.edu/~rloldershaw/OBS.HTM) criticized inflation models writing

"The major prediction of the Inflated Big Bang theory is that the
matter density of the universe equals the critical density (i.e., Omega =3D=
1),
but this prediction has been contradicted by most observationally based
estimates made to date (Rothman and Ellis, 1987). "

But with the observations of distant supernovae in 1997, we discovered that=
we were missing the energy density required for cosmic acceleration, and t=
hat this energy density is roughly what was needed for a flat universe. S=
ubsequent CMB observations have confirmed this estimate of the amount of da=
rk energy.

Thus the distant supernovae observations validate the major prediction of =
inflation models.


As for inflation "implying" a flat universe, well it's the other way
around in the practical sense that all the inflation calculations have
been done *assuming* a flat universe. Real feet of clay stuff.

The prediction of inflation models of a flat universe has been confirmed in=
multiple ways. Science at its best!

[Moderator's note: Reformatted. Please limit unquoted lines to 72
characters!!!!! Put in hard returns if necessary.-P.H.]

On Friday, December 9, 2016 at 2:17:12 PM UTC-5, Phillip Helbig (undress to
reply) wrote:

Yes, the supernova data do indicate an accelerating universe. They are
not the only line of evidence. At the time, they were the only test
which, by itself, indicated acceleration, although combinations of other
tests did. (These days, the CMB alone gives very good constraints on
almost all parameters.) The supernova data, however, don't indicate
flatness. In fact, the contours are almost perpendicular to the lines
of constant curvature radius. (This is good, since the CMB is sensitive
mainly to curvature and the contours are degenerate along lines of
constant curvature, so combining the almost orthogonal contours
drastically reduces the allowed region. As luck would have it, BAO
contours are somewhere in between. Just the fact that all three meet at
the same point (lambda=0.7, Omega=0.3, which has been around since the
early 1990s as the concordance model, though with larger uncertainties)
is a really good consistency check.) Yes, they are consistent with a
flat universe, but also with many other, non-flat universes. The CMB
data alone, even today, don't usefully constrain the curvature.

I don't think your timeline is quite right. If one does an ADS search
on the phrase"concordance model", the first use of the term is by Max
Tegmark in 2002, and then its usage explodes after the first WMAP
results in 2003. Similarly, the ADS shows *no* mention of the phrase
"dark energy" prior to 1998, although its usage explodes after that
time. My point is that the empirical discovery of an accelerating
universe in 1997 was quite unexpected, though it subsequently turned out
to be well accommodated into a concordance cosmology. That is why I
found the 1997 talk so exciting.

As for inflation, the supernova data can't validate models of inflation.
At best, if one believes (which seems to be a robust prediction) that
inflation implies a flat universe, then the supernova data are
consistent with this prediction.

Yes, I was being a bit flippant with the term "validate". But prior to
1997 there was no evidence for 70% of the energy density needed for a
flat universe, which is a prediction by inflation models. The
supernova data showed that this energy density is provided the dark
energy causing the cosmic acceleration.

--Wayne

In article ,
David Crawford writes:
The fitting as stated is a weighted least squares to the parabola
with three parameters. The peak magnitude, the epoch of the peak
magnitude and the width.

A parabola is not a Gaussian, and neither one is a good fit to a SN
light curve. In particular, the information on time dilation comes
from the decline phase of the light curve, which is exponential in
flux density and therefore linear in magnitudes.

--
Help keep our newsgroup healthy; please don't feed the trolls.
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

In article ,
wlandsman writes:

I was going to reply to wlandsman's point, but you've already done it
so well, Phil. Still, the notion that inflation can be "validated" by
estimating just the right amount of invisible material is provocative
at the least. I would call that "not science".

I would call it "extraordinary science". The models of inflation
developed in the early 1980s made a bold prediction that the universe
would be flat (mean energy equal to the critical density), even though
there was little empirical evidence for this.

This is true.

For example, Oldershaw
(1989, http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw/OBS.HTM) criticized
inflation models writing

"The major prediction of the Inflated Big Bang theory is that the
matter density of the universe equals the critical density (i.e., Omega =
= 1),
but this prediction has been contradicted by most observationally based
estimates made to date (Rothman and Ellis, 1987). "

First, Oldershaw is a strange "authority" to cite. Second, the
"Inflated Big Bang theory" is typical of his off-topic rhetoric.

Inflation NEVER predicted a matter density equal to the critical
density. It predicts, fairly robustly, a flat universe. If one ASSUMES
that the cosmological constant is zero, then that implies Omega=1, but
this is an invalid assumption and is not a prediction of inflation.

But with the observations of distant supernovae in 1997, we discovered
that we were missing the energy density required for cosmic
acceleration, and that this energy density is roughly what was needed
for a flat universe. Subsequent CMB observations have confirmed this
estimate of the amount of dark energy.

This is simply not true. Look at the contours in the lambda-Omega plane
from the supernova data. They are essentially orthogonal to lines of
constant curvature. Yes, they do indicate a positive cosmological
constant, and while compatible with a flat universe, are also compatible
with a much larger region of parameter space.

Thus the distant supernovae observations validate the major prediction
of inflation models.

The major prediction is flatness, and the CMB data say essentially
nothing about this. There is no conflict; they are just not very
sensitive to the curvature.

The prediction of inflation models of a flat universe has been
confirmed in multiple ways.

Yes, but not by supernova data.

In article ,
wlandsman writes:

I don't think your timeline is quite right. If one does an ADS search
on the phrase"concordance model", the first use of the term is by Max
Tegmark in 2002,

I am sure that it was used before that. In any case, what matters is
not the name, but the model. This goes back at least to the Nature
paper by Ostriker and Steinhardt, which was early 1990s. What one calls
it is another matter, but not really the issue.

and then its usage explodes after the first WMAP
results in 2003. Similarly, the ADS shows *no* mention of the phrase
"dark energy" prior to 1998, although its usage explodes after that
time.

Right; that's when Mike Turner coined it. A search for "cosmological
constant" should show up earlier references. :-) Again, the name (and
this is a particularly bad one) doesn't matter.

My point is that the empirical discovery of an accelerating
universe in 1997 was quite unexpected, though it subsequently turned out
to be well accommodated into a concordance cosmology. That is why I
found the 1997 talk so exciting.

I agree, they were exciting times, and I was glad to be there. It was
unexpected by some, but not all. That is, the RESULT was not unexpected
by all, but the good observational data were a surprise to most.

Yes, I was being a bit flippant with the term "validate". But prior to
1997 there was no evidence for 70% of the energy density needed for a
flat universe, which is a prediction by inflation models.

There was evidence in that the matter density was low and a universe
without a cosmological constant wouldn't be old enough. But the
uncertainties were large.

The
supernova data showed that this energy density is provided the dark
energy causing the cosmic acceleration.

They showed that "dark energy" (or the cosmological constant) EXISTS,
but STILL don't show that its VALUE is that required to make a flat
universe.