Evidence for a static universe

[[Mod. note --
1. The author's argument (that the light curves of type Ia supernovae
do not show time dialation and hence the universe must be static)
would generally fall into our newsgroup charter's prohibition against
"excessively speculative" material. However, I'm approving this
posting because the author has made what is apparently a serious
effort at analyzing SnIa data, and I think discussion of this data
analysis in the newsgroup is likely to be interesting.
2. This article arrived in my moderation inbox with rather garbled
formatting. I have rewrapped excessively-long lines and inserted
blank lines in places where I believe the author intended to start
new paragraphs. My apologies if I've misconstrued the author's
intentions.
-- jt]]

My paper ( http://viXra.org/abs/1611.0310 ) strongly argues that
universe is static because the light curves of type Ia supernovae
do not show time dilation. My first argument shows that the standard
method of analysis, Salt2 (or similar), has the property of being
unable to distinguish between intrinsic variations of the characteristics
of the type Ia light curves and any other variations that are a
simple function of redshift. It is known that the intrinsic
characteristics of the light curves are a function of the wavelength
at which that are observed and therefore the light curve observed
at a large redshift will be different to that at a nearby redshift.
However it is assumed that the supernovae are the same at all
redshifts so that a light curve of a high redshift supernovae at n
observed wavelength can be used to determine the intrinsic light
curve at the rest-frame (i.e. the emitted) wavelength. The beauty
of the Salt2 method is that it uses this property to average the
results from many supernovae at different redshifts to obtain the
average light curve at rest-frame wavelengths as a set of templates.
Then the analysis of a particular supernova consists of comparing
the light curve at the rest-frame wavelength with the appropriate
template. For example the measured width of the light curve is the
ratio of the rest-frame width to the template width. In the model
for an expanding universe this ratio is then multiplied by (1+z)
to obtain the observed width.

The problem with this Salt2 method is that it divides all the epoch
differences by (1+z) to reduce them to the rest-frame. If there is
time dilation it is cancelled by this division. However if there
is no time dilation this function of 1/(1+z) is included in the
templates. On subsequent analysis the same correction applied to
the raw epoch differences is cancelled by identical function applied
to the original supernovae data. The paper shows that the reference
templates are exactly what would be produced if supernovae at
different redshifts did not have time dilation and yet time dilation
corrections were applied. Moreover it shows that the standard light
curve width parameter x1 does not contain any evidence of the
presence or absence of time dilation.

My next argument is to examine the widths of light curves of the
supernova without Salt2 calibrations. They clearly show the lack
of time dilation Note that the arguments for a static universe
depend only on the presence or absence of time dilation and do not
depend on any other cosmological model.

The rest of the paper uses a static cosmological model to show that
the peak magnitudes of the the light curve is in agreement with a
static universe.

I have submitted this paper to MNRAS, PASA, ApJ, OJA and Astropart
Phys. All except Astroparticle Physics reject the paper with any
explanation. The exceptional review is

"Reviewer #1: In this paper, the authors study SN Ia data and argue
that proper analysis of the observables (light curves, peak magnitudes)
supports the idea of a static universe. I recommend that this
manuscript be rejected for publication in Astroparticle Physics.

The idea that SN light-curve widths increase in proportion to (1 + z)
is an empirical fact, and this does not have anything to do with
the templates or how these templates were constructed. Failing to
analyze the light curves in the correct rest frame would lead to
an obvious trend in the x1 parameter as a function of z, and this
is not observed.

The conclusion of a static universe is not remotely supported by
the arguments made in the paper, even if they were correct, as the
evidence for Big Bang cosmology and the expanding universe is
established by, and consistent with, multiple independent observations
(CMB, BBN, structure formation)."

I objected and the editor agreed with his reviewer.

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.
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).

In article ,
David Crawford writes:

My paper ( http://viXra.org/abs/1611.0310 ) strongly argues that
universe is static because the light curves of type Ia supernovae
do not show time dilation.

Then there's something wrong with your analysis. We had a long
discussion on this very subject back in 2004 under the subject line
"Any complete standardized SNIa data out there?" One message-id in
the thread is .

For a simple example, compare the light curves of SN1995E at z=0.01
measured in B with that of SN1997ek measured in I. Those are the
same rest wavelengths, and the distant SN takes longer to decay than
the nearby one. This is independent of any subtlety in analysis.
Actual analyses show the same thing, and absence of time dilation
would be obvious.

It is in principle possible that distant supernovae differ from
nearby ones in a way that would exactly mimic time dilation. That
would be "new physics."

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

In article ,
David Crawford writes:
My paper ( http://viXra.org/abs/1611.0310 ) strongly argues that
universe is static because the light curves of type Ia supernovae
do not show time dilation.

Then there's something wrong with your analysis. We had a long
discussion on this very subject back in 2004 under the subject line
"Any complete standardized SNIa data out there?" One message-id in
the thread is .

For a simple example, compare the light curves of SN1995E at z=0.01
measured in B with that of SN1997ek measured in I. Those are the
same rest wavelengths, and the distant SN takes longer to decay than
the nearby one. This is independent of any subtlety in analysis.
Actual analyses show the same thing, and absence of time dilation
would be obvious.

It is in principle possible that distant supernovae differ from
nearby ones in a way that would exactly mimic time dilation. That
would be "new physics."

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

On Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 5:31:04 AM UTC+11, Steve Willner wrote:
In article ,
David Crawford writes:

Then there's something wrong with your analysis. We had a long
discussion on this very subject back in 2004 under the subject line
"Any complete standardized SNIa data out there?" One message-id in
the thread is .

For a simple example, compare the light curves of SN1995E at z=3D0.01
measured in B with that of SN1997ek measured in I. Those are the
same rest wavelengths, and the distant SN takes longer to decay than
the nearby one. This is independent of any subtlety in analysis.
Actual analyses show the same thing, and absence of time dilation
would be obvious.

It is in principle possible that distant supernovae differ from
nearby ones in a way that would exactly mimic time dilation. That
would be "new physics."

This is an example of what I usually get. the universe is expanding
therefore the argument must be wrong. But why is it wrong.

Note my argument shows that the Salt2 (or equivalent) calibration
method removes all the common redshift dependent information from
the calibrated light curves. Thus in the literature any supernova
that is calibrated by the Salt2 method will have an observed width
that is (1+z) times some constant. In other words the x1 parameter
or stretch factor is meaningless.

Note that I also show that the raw data (i.e. not calibrated with
Salt2) for 733 type Ia supernovae show no evidence of time dilation.

[[Mod. note -- You've made an extraordinary claim (namely, that a
large body of modern astrophysics research has made a glaring error),
but you haven't as yet provided extraordinary evidence. In particular,
you haven't convinced experts in supernova-light-curve analysis that
you've found a significant flaw in the standard analysis, nor have
you convinced them that your analysis is correct.

I don't think it's the rest of the astrophysics research community's
job to go through your arguments in detail to answer the question
"why is it wrong". (Although I recall a good attempt being made at
that when we discussed your analysis in this newsgroup in 2004.)
Rather, it's your job (if you want to convince this community) to
go through the standard analysis in detail and point out its flaws
*in a manner that will convince experts*. This doesn't have to be
an "all at once" effort -- it's reasonable to ask questions along
the way. 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".
-- jt]]

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!!!


This goes against the scientific principle of questioning our current
theories and trying to find out if better ones fit better the data.

Scientific publication can only be forbidden if there are argumented
problems with the paper.

I quote from the original post:
quote
I have submitted this paper to MNRAS, PASA, ApJ, OJA and Astropart
Phys. All except Astroparticle Physics reject the paper with any
explanation. The exceptional review is

"Reviewer #1: In this paper, the authors study SN Ia data and argue
that proper analysis of the observables (light curves, peak magnitudes)
supports the idea of a static universe. I recommend that this
manuscript be rejected for publication in Astroparticle Physics.
end quote

This is saying that the heresy shouldn't have a place in respected
journals or what?

Without any technical arguments just "BECAUSE THIS PROPOSES A STATIC
UNIVERSE"

???

So what?

Is "big bang cosmology" a religion or a scientific theory?

If it is a scientific theory it can be doubted, as ANY theory, specially
such an extrapolation beyond the observable universe...

A static universe could very well explain data and current observations.

Outrageous?

Only a refutal of the technical arguments proposed in his work can
really tell us if he is right or wrong. This is not religion here, so
the experts should

1) Allow this work to be published
2) Argue why the arguments proposed are wrong.

And if they can't, they say it loud:

We do not know, this goes against our theory but we can't explain it now.

[[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]]

On Friday, December 2, 2016 at 8:24:18 AM UTC+11, David Crawford wrote:
On Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 5:31:04 AM UTC+11, Steve Willner wrote:
In article ,
David Crawford writes:

Then there's something wrong with your analysis. We had a long
discussion on this very subject back in 2004 under the subject line
"Any complete standardized SNIa data out there?" One message-id in
the thread is .

For a simple example, compare the light curves of SN1995E at z=3D3D0.01
measured in B with that of SN1997ek measured in I. Those are the
same rest wavelengths, and the distant SN takes longer to decay than
the nearby one. This is independent of any subtlety in analysis.
Actual analyses show the same thing, and absence of time dilation
would be obvious.

It is in principle possible that distant supernovae differ from
nearby ones in a way that would exactly mimic time dilation. That
would be "new physics."

This is an example of what I usually get. the universe is expanding
therefore the argument must be wrong. But why is it wrong.

Note my argument shows that the Salt2 (or equivalent) calibration
method removes all the common redshift dependent information from
the calibrated light curves. Thus in the literature any supernova
that is calibrated by the Salt2 method will have an observed width
that is (1+z) times some constant. In other words the x1 parameter
or stretch factor is meaningless.

Note that I also show that the raw data (i.e. not calibrated with
Salt2) for 733 type Ia supernovae show no evidence of time dilation.

[[Mod. note -- You've made an extraordinary claim (namely, that a
large body of modern astrophysics research has made a glaring error),
but you haven't as yet provided extraordinary evidence. In particular,
you haven't convinced experts in supernova-light-curve analysis that
you've found a significant flaw in the standard analysis, nor have
you convinced them that your analysis is correct.

I don't think it's the rest of the astrophysics research community's
job to go through your arguments in detail to answer the question
"why is it wrong". (Although I recall a good attempt being made at
that when we discussed your analysis in this newsgroup in 2004.)
Rather, it's your job (if you want to convince this community) to
go through the standard analysis in detail and point out its flaws
*in a manner that will convince experts*. This doesn't have to be
an "all at once" effort -- it's reasonable to ask questions along
the way. 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".
-- jt]]

You put me in a real catch 22. You demand that I provide extraordinary
evidence, which I have done. The arguments that I have give are
simple and do not need special knowledge of supernovae or and
expertise in cosmology. All is required is that type 1A supernovae
have a light curve and that in an expanding universe it is subject
to time dilation. This argument is vastly improved and different
from what I wrote in 2004.

[[Mod. note --
In addition to your paper on vixra (1611.0310), I see 4 of your papers
on arXiv (arXiv:0901.4169, arXiv:0901.4172, arXiv:1009.0953, and 1307.6589),
so your work is readily available to interested parties. If your
arguments are as simple and as convincing as you say, then perhaps
experts will be swayed by them. So far I don't think that's happened.
-- jt]]

In article ,
jacobnavia writes:

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

While I agree that there needs to be debate in the literature, and while
I think that all serious submissions should, if rejected, get at least a
brief note as to why, allowing the publication of just ANYTHING would
make journals useless. Where do you draw the line?

There is also evidence against your conspiracy: When the first papers
claimed that the acceleration of the universe had been measured, this
was greeted by extreme scepticism. However, the papers were published,
and now the prevailing consensus has changed. Science is
self-correcting. Were your caricature true, no-one would have been able
to publish after 1990 or so anything claiming that the universe is not
described by the Einstein-de Sitter model.

As Jonathan points out, no-one is silenced, as these days there are
multiple outlets. While no serious scientist reads viXra, the original
poster has pointed out his work in various newsgroups and blogs, some of
which are read by serious scientists. I'm sure that some have looked at
his paper.

The situation would be different if the ONLY evidence of a non-static
universe were the supernova data, but that has never been the case.
Thus, an alternative theory not only has to explain the rather technical
point of what is wrong with SALT2, but also all the other evidence which
points to a non-static universe.


[[Mod. note -- As well as his recent long paper on vixra, the original
poster has also posted 4 previous papers on the arxiv making similar
arguments.
-- jt]]

In article ,
David Crawford writes:

You put me in a real catch 22. You demand that I provide extraordinary
evidence, which I have done. The arguments that I have give are
simple and do not need special knowledge of supernovae or and
expertise in cosmology. All is required is that type 1A supernovae
have a light curve and that in an expanding universe it is subject
to time dilation. This argument is vastly improved and different
from what I wrote in 2004.

Let's try a reductio ad absurdum.

First, the basic idea. Classical cosmology involves comparing some
observable as a function of redshift and fitting for the cosmological
parameters, since the form of the function depends on them. A classic
case are standard candles. Supernovae, even just type Ia supernovae,
are NOT standard candles. However, the idea is that other obervables
can be used to essentially turn them into standard candles. (This is
essentially what the Nobel Prize was awarded for, not for some textbook
application of 1920s cosmology. As Feynman said to a journalist, if I
could explain it in a minute it wouldn't be worth a Nobel Prize.) One
of these observables is the width of the light curve; there is a
correlation between the intrinsic width and the intrinsic luminosity.

Yes, the standard analysis assumes that the universe is expanding and
that the light curve is stretched by the redshift. (This is not
assuming which one is attempting to prove, since no-one has claimed that
the supernova data prove the expansion of the universe.) So, one has to
calculate the intrinsic width of the light curve from the redshift. One
then has the intrinsic luminosity and can thus calculate the observed
luminosity for various combinations of cosmological parameters and
compare with observations. When this is done, what is the result? The
result is that there is a region in the space of the cosmological
parameters which is consistent with the observations. And this space
contains the values of the standard model, which can be measured by
methods completely different from the supernova stuff. The fact that
independent tests result in the same values is why it is known as the
concordance model. If there were no stretching of the light curve with
redshift, then the calculated absolute luminosities would be wrong, and
one would get a different result. (In fact, one would probably find
that no combination of parameters gives a good fit.)

So, you are asking us to believe that there is no stretching of the
light curve, but when this is (in your view) WRONGLY assumed, the
analysis results in values for the cosmological parameters which are
compatible with completely different tests.

Le 03/12/2016 à 19:05, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) a écrit :
If there were no stretching of the light curve with
redshift, then the calculated absolute luminosities would be wrong, and
one would get a different result.

http://www.sciencealert.com/no-the-u...say-physicists

quote
Since scientists first proposed dark energy, no one's gotten any closer
to figuring out what it could actually be.

But now an international team of physicists have questioned the
acceration of the Universe's expansion, and they've got a much bigger
database of Type 1a supernovae to back them up.

By applying a different analytical model to the 740 Type Ia supernovae
that have been identified so far, the team says they've been able to
account for the subtle differences between them like never before.

They say the statistical techniques used by the original team were too
simplistic, and were based on a model devised in the 1930s, which can't
reliability be applied to the growing supernova dataset.

They also mention that the cosmic microwave background isn't directly
affected by dark matter, so only serves as an "indirect" type of evidence.

"We analysed the latest catalogue of 740 Type Ia supernovae - over 10
times bigger than the original samples on which the discovery claim was
based - and found that the evidence for accelerated expansion is, at
most, what physicists call '3 sigma'," reports lead researcher, Subir
Sarkar, from the University of Oxford.

"This is far short of the '5 sigma' standard required to claim a
discovery of fundamental significance."
end quote

Let's get seriuous.

This very interesting result hasn't been commented here and is a pity.

The more we see from the observable universe, the more our theories will
change, and new cosmologies will appear.

As has been always the case since we started looking at the heavens.

New scopes will come online soon. Hubble already sees the vague reflects
of the sea of galaxies that extends apparently forever. They said in a
communique some weeks ago that the number of galaxies is at least 10
times bigger than what we thought.

Because the universe is bigger than anything we can possible imagine.
Big bangs included.

In article ,
jacobnavia wrote:
Is "big bang cosmology" a religion or a scientific theory?

If it is a scientific theory it can be doubted, as ANY theory, specially
such an extrapolation beyond the observable universe...

A static universe could very well explain data and current observations.

Outrageous?

Only a refutal of the technical arguments proposed in his work can
really tell us if he is right or wrong. This is not religion here, so
the experts should

1) Allow this work to be published
2) Argue why the arguments proposed are wrong.

And if they can't, they say it loud:

We do not know, this goes against our theory but we can't explain it now.

I think there's a more generic point beyond the specific details of
this thread, namely, given an unorthodox scientific claim, how should
the scientific community respond?

Arnold Neumaier discussed this point (referring to a different
unorthodox scientific claim) in sci.physics.research in 2005. I find
his framing of the issue very insightful, and I'd like to quote from
it here. I'm deliberately eliding the details of the scientific question
which was under discussion there because I'm trying to draw out the
generic issues independent of the unorthodox-claim details. I've
marked the quoted lines by "# " at the start of each line, and I've
rewrapped some long lines:

# From: Arnold Neumaier
# Newsgroups: sci.physics.research
# Subject: How to get a paper published as an independent unknown
# Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 18:06:25 +0000 (UTC)
# Message-ID:
# References:
#
# Jay R. Yablon wrote:
# For a number of years have been doing independent research into
# the question of [[...]]
#
# But, as an independent researcher without a name or affiliation,
# it seems impossible to get a fair hearing at many of the journals.
#
# What do you think is the best route for an unknown to take to get
# someone to take a good look? Are there journals that are more likely
# than others to at least take a good look at a paper from an unknown
# rather than sending out a form rejection letter?
#
# [[...]]
#
# Time is precious for active scientists. So keep your article as short
# as possible without losing substance. 120 pages of detailed analysis
# is too much for most people to read, unless they already have high
# confidence that the contents is sound. If you really need 120 pages
# to make your case you need to make short versions of your long paper
# that allow others to do checks for reasonableness with less efforts.
#
# You'd have a 1/2 page abstract, a 3 page introduction, a 7 page outline,
# a 20 page version with the key steps, and a full paper with all the
# details, and each of these versions should be self-contained and allow
# the reader to get a feeling of what you do, and why you succeed, in
# terms of background that shows that you are familiar with the state
# of the art and in a language that is both understandable and concise,
# so that anyone reading it gets a sense of high quality work that is
# informative and inviting.
#
# Note that the most important task is not to present your claim and
# praise or defend your work, but to convince others that your claim
# deserves trust enough to spend time on checking it.
# It is all too easy to make claims that are unsubstantiated but
# embedded in a complicated manuscript where one gets easily lost,
# loses track of what is important, and therefore misses the mistakes
# or gaps in the arguments. And it isi the responsibility of the
# innovator to present the news in a way that makes checking and trusting
# easy.
#
# If you find many published papers that do not meet these standards,
# it is probably because their contents is not important enough to
# require high standards of checking, or that their conclusions are
# not inviting suspicion. But innovative work invites suspicion since
# it is out of the common, and if relevant requires therefore higher
# standards to be accepted.
#
# See also the section on 'How to sell your revolutionary idea'
# in my theoretical physics FAQ at
# http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/physics-faq.txt

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"
Dept of Astronomy & IUCSS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched
at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police
plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable
that they watched everybody all the time." -- George Orwell, "1984"