Static universe

I have submitted the paper "A Static Universe is Consistent with Type Ia
Supernovae Observations" ArXiv 1307.6589 (http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.6589)
to seven journals an received the rejection notices:

MNRAS:
Editor 1
"This paper deals with the proposal that the Universe is not expanding,
but that redshifts are produced by a tired-light mechanism. This
hypothesis is used to infer that the observation of Type 1a supernovae
are consistent with such a static universe by re-calibrating the
Type 1a using the Phillips relation modified by assuming a selection
effect.
This is aimed at providing evidence against an expanding universe
model and for a static "curvature" cosmology, a tired-light model.
This analysis is dependent on the assumption of an apparent magnitude
selection bias. As the author notes the selection effects can be
complex, so its unclear if this effect has been cherry-picked to
lead to the results. The paper also ignores the past 90 years of
work on testing the standard cosmological model, in favour of this
analysis in favour of a static model. Given the high-level of work
in this area the analysis and conclusions fall well below the standard
expected for publication in MNRAS."

Editor 2
"There are numerous observations, not considered here, which exclude
a static Universe model and hence the work is of no practical relevance
for our Universe. Supernova data are certainly not crucial, or even
necessary, to reach that conclusion. "

A&A:
After consideration by our Editorial Board, I regret to inform you that
your manuscript cannot be considered for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysics.

JCAP:
The "tired light model" the author discusses is obsolete, as
demonstrated by every other analysis over many decades, Analysing the
SN data in that context is thus not of interest for publication in JCAP.

Phys Rev D:
The expansion of the Universe is supported by a large number of
observations. Unfortunately, the author only address the description of
SN1a light curve to dismiss the Big-Bang model. Details of his proposal
are dubious, at best. I do not support publication of this paper in
Phys Rev D.

AJ:
The Astronomical Journal publishes papers based on the gathering,
reporting and analysis of observational data and not articles of a
speculative theoretical nature. Consequently, we are unable to consider
your paper or similarly speculative manuscripts for publication.

New Astronomy
We have read your paper submitted to New Astronomy and determined that
the content is not within the scope of the journal. We hope you will be
able to find a more appropriate journal.

Apj:
We have now completed our review of your manuscript, and I regret to
tell you that we are not able to undertake further consideration of
your submission for publication in the The Astrophysical Journal.
My apologies, but we are not willing to continue to review papers on
this topic.

My comments:
Those that gave a reason basically said that we know the universe is
expanding thus this work is rubbish. Such an argument implies that
the big bang paradigm should not or can not be challenged. To dismiss
a challenge on the basis that a proposed model is inconsistent with
the model being challenged does not meet the standards of scientific
enquiry.
My problem is that if these rejections are valid then the paper must
be invalid, but I have not received any comments about the arguments
and analysis in the paper. Naturally I believe the arguments are valid.
I am interested in comments that either support the paper or show that
there are serious problems with the arguments within it. If you wish to
contact me directly my email is given in the paper.

Regards
David Crawford

On 9/16/2014 7:42 AM, davd wrote:
I have submitted the paper "A Static Universe is Consistent with Type Ia
Supernovae Observations" ArXiv 1307.6589 (http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.6589)
to seven journals an received the rejection notices:
[ ... ]
My comments:
Those that gave a reason basically said that we know the universe is
expanding thus this work is rubbish.

The main reason I see stated is that the work only
questions a small part of the proof for expansion
and that even that part is not refuted convincingly.
(I do not know whether this judgment is true, but it
is a valid line of reasoning for journals to select
interesting content.)

Such an argument implies that
the big bang paradigm should not or can not be challenged.

It can be challenged if you address all, or at least
the most crucial parts, of the evidence in favor of
this paradigm. The editors say you didn't do that,
so you just have to do more work to challenge it.

...
My problem is that if these rejections are valid then the paper must
be invalid, but I have not received any comments about the arguments
and analysis in the paper.

The first one already writes "unclear if this effect
has been cherry-picked to lead to the results" so he
seems to question your method. (Again, I cannot judge
whether he is correct, but he seems to be using a
valid line of reasoning. Is your method traceable?
Can you clearly show that his remark is unjustified?)

Naturally I believe the arguments are valid.
I am interested in comments that either support the paper or show that
there are serious problems with the arguments within it.

That is in fact the main task of the reviewers. About
a dozen or so have already spent their time on it, it
seems.

--
Jos

Am 16.09.2014 20:16, schrieb Jos Bergervoet:
On 9/16/2014 7:42 AM, davd wrote:
I have submitted the paper "A Static Universe is Consistent with Type Ia
Supernovae Observations" ArXiv 1307.6589 (http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.6589)
to seven journals an received the rejection notices:
[ ... ]
My comments:
Those that gave a reason basically said that we know the universe is
expanding thus this work is rubbish.

...

Such an argument implies that
the big bang paradigm should not or can not be challenged.

Yes


It can be challenged if you address all, or at least
the most crucial parts, of the evidence in favor of
this paradigm. The editors say you didn't do that,
so you just have to do more work to challenge it.


With one exception the editors make only claims without reasons.

...
My problem is that if these rejections are valid then the paper must
be invalid, but I have not received any comments about the arguments
and analysis in the paper.

The first one already writes "unclear if this effect
has been cherry-picked to lead to the results" so he
seems to question your method.

it's a good question, but without any further hint.


Naturally I believe the arguments are valid.
I am interested in comments that either support the paper or show that
there are serious problems with the arguments within it.

That is in fact the main task of the reviewers. About
a dozen or so have already spent their time on it, it
seems.

No, they have not; one can see, that only one reviewer spent some time:
I think at maximum one or two hours.

On 9/17/2014 5:25 AM, Homo Lykos wrote:
Am 16.09.2014 20:16, schrieb Jos Bergervoet:
On 9/16/2014 7:42 AM, davd wrote:
I have submitted the paper "A Static Universe is Consistent with Type Ia
Supernovae Observations" ArXiv 1307.6589 (http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.6589)
...
...
It can be challenged if you address all, or at least
the most crucial parts, of the evidence in favor of
this paradigm. The editors say you didn't do that,
so you just have to do more work to challenge it.

With one exception the editors make only claims without reasons.

That is allowed, they are supposed to know their
job (why else would you submit to the journal if you
don't trust its scientific standards?) If they tell
you that 2x2 is not 5, they do *not* have to give
extensive proof, or write an equally long article
than yours to prove the contrary. That is not
their job, they just give their opinion that you
are wrong!

...
My problem is that if these rejections are valid then the paper must
be invalid, but I have not received any comments about the arguments
and analysis in the paper.

The first one already writes "unclear if this effect
has been cherry-picked to lead to the results" so he
seems to question your method.

it's a good question, but without any further hint.

It's up to the author to improve his article.
Reviewers do not have to help him to improve
his work. They just should criticize it where
that is needed.

...
Naturally I believe the arguments are valid.
I am interested in comments that either support the paper or show that
there are serious problems with the arguments within it.

That is in fact the main task of the reviewers. About
a dozen or so have already spent their time on it, it
seems.

No, they have not; one can see, that only one reviewer spent some time:
I think at maximum one or two hours.

That should be sufficient to see if there is
useful content. If it takes longer than that the
author should improve the abstract, introduction,
or conclusion sections (or else ordinary readers
would not be interested either!)

--
Jos

Am 17.09.2014 19:52, schrieb Jos Bergervoet:
On 9/17/2014 5:25 AM, Homo Lykos wrote:
.....

With one exception the editors make only claims without reasons.

That is allowed, they are supposed to know their job

If you make scientific decisions by authoritys (popes): yes

if you make scintific decisions by arguments (Galilei, Kepler, ...): no

(why else would you submit to the journal if you don't trust its scientific standards?)

e.g.: Without publication a serious discussion and independent check of
(really) new ideas is mostly not possible.


The first one already writes "unclear if this effect
has been cherry-picked to lead to the results" so he
seems to question your method.

it's a good question, but without any further hint.

It's up to the author to improve his article.
Reviewers do not have to help him to improve
his work.

Good reviewers do it to the general adventage of science.

On Tue, 16 Sep 14 05:42:59 GMT, davd wrote:
I am interested in comments that either support the paper or show that
there are serious problems with the arguments within it.

I did read DC's paper a couple of years ago as it has been publically
available, and unlike the journals I am interested in static models of
the universe. However, I did not like the model of light presented in
the paper, as it holds that photons can interact non-destructively in
their flight paths. To me it is clear that photons can't interact
with anything between emission and registration, and that their flight
paths (so to speak) follow null geodesics which are just straight
lines through a gravity-contoured manifold. So a registered photon is
always a perfect archive of its emitted state, although doppler-like
effects happen at registration, of course. Since the model of light
was wrong, the static model was wrong, was my take.

Am 16.09.2014 20:17, schrieb Eric Flesch:
On Tue, 16 Sep 14 05:42:59 GMT, davd wrote:
I am interested in comments that either support the paper or show that
there are serious problems with the arguments within it.

I did read DC's paper a couple of years ago as it has been publically
available, and unlike the journals I am interested in static models of
the universe. However, I did not like the model of light ... Since the
model of light was wrong, the [this] static model was wrong, was my take.

This is my opinion too, but:

1) One never should say something is wrong without proof.

2) Every attempt to try to understand Phillips relation better (than
only by heuristics) is very commendable! I say this although I hope and
think, that Crawfords interpretation is wrong.

I have a static model with modified cosmic gravitation and with only one
single and slightly free parameter: the density of the infinite,
Euclidean WPT-universe. It explains the cosmic redshift _and_ time
dilation (and a great lot more) by the cosmic gravity of the world
potential theory (WPT):

www.wolff.ch/astro/q.pdf

In spite of all this my publishing problems are much greater than
Crawford's problems: Until now I made five attempts without success to
publish my new static cosmology:

www.wolff.ch/astro/Pub_e.pdf

Peter Wolff

[Mod. note: let's try to keep this thread related to publication in
astrophysics rather than the merits of competing fringe theories,
otherwise I will have to start applying the speculativeness criterion.
-- mjh]

In article , davd
writes:

Those that gave a reason basically said that we know the universe is
expanding thus this work is rubbish. Such an argument implies that
the big bang paradigm should not or can not be challenged. To dismiss
a challenge on the basis that a proposed model is inconsistent with
the model being challenged does not meet the standards of scientific
enquiry.

Not really. They are saying that there is a huge amount of evidence in
support of an expanding universe, so it would need really, really,
really, really good evidence against it to overthrow this notion,
something which you have not provided. There might be occasions when
people are not open-minded enough, but this is not one of them.

As was mentioned, the supernova data themselves are not in any way
crucial to the idea of an expanding universe, so concentrating on them
and ignoring the rest of the evidence in favour of an expanding universe
seems a bit strange.

My problem is that if these rejections are valid then the paper must
be invalid, but I have not received any comments about the arguments
and analysis in the paper. Naturally I believe the arguments are valid.
I am interested in comments that either support the paper or show that
there are serious problems with the arguments within it. If you wish to
contact me directly my email is given in the paper.

This is probably down to time. We are all mortal, and have to choose
how to invest our time. If we believe that the conclusion is wrong (not
because of lack of open-mindedness, but rather because of other
evidence), then why waste time looking at the arguments in detail.

Another question: Why do you think the universe is static? Presumably
you thought so before you wrote this paper.

Just wait a few years. Standard cosmology predicts that the redshift of
an object will change with time, in a way which depends on the
cosmological model. Your model doesn't. Spectrographs are now becoming
sensitive enough to detect this within a time range of several years.
There is an ESO key project doing this. Will you accept the fact that
if this change in redshift is observed, moreover in a fashion predicted
by the cosmological parameters of the standard model, that your theory
is definitively ruled out?

On Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:00:40 PM UTC+10, Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote:
As was mentioned, the supernova data themselves are not in any way
crucial to the idea of an expanding universe, so concentrating on them
and ignoring the rest of the evidence in favour of an expanding universe
seems a bit strange.

I have provided in my earlier papers considerable evidence that most
observations are consistent with a static universe.

Another question: Why do you think the universe is static? Presumably
you thought so before you wrote this paper.

I agree I have always had a dislike of the standard expansion model.
Mainly about inflation.

[Mod. note: inflation is not part of the standard expansion model.
Quoted text massively trimmed and reformatted, please do this yourself
-- mjh]

In article ,
davd writes:
"This paper deals with the proposal that the Universe is not expanding,
but that redshifts are produced by a tired-light mechanism. This
hypothesis is used to infer that the observation of Type 1a supernovae
are consistent with such a static universe by re-calibrating the
Type 1a using the Phillips relation modified by assuming a selection
effect.

Why doesn't the observed light curve stretch -- higher-redshift SNe
take longer to decline -- rule out tired light as providing the bulk
of the redshift?

There are, of course, lots of other arguments against any tired light
explanation. It's not as though the possibility has been ignored.

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