Say Something Smart

Love the way you explain these things,and really really hate the "smart" proprietary languages of all the different disciplines. Intuitive descriptions are always the best way to start. Margaret Mead got hassled by her own fellows in anthropology for this same reason--over simplifying. They should have given her a medal (and you too) for bothering to talk to the general public about these things. Remind those old frumps, that all those young unwashed readers grow up and becomes voters, who might have a say in something they want funded. Am an artist and see that kind of pattern in lots of organic things--like neuron connectivity, and bone structure. It's fascinating. Thank you for letting us lay people in on it! Viva La Curiosita'!

Richard Feyman made the same point, as did Stephen Jay Gould (the latter more pompously, of course): If you can't explain your knowledge in plain language, then you probably don't understand it yourself.

Jargon has its place (as you well know). Your thirteen-word sentence required hundreds of words to reproduce without the jargon. Of course, a substantial fraction of that was introductory definitions. However, even assuming some baseline knowledge, there is a substantial excess:

"Small variations in density in the early universe grow as the ratio of matter to radiation density during expansion, until gravitational collapse dominates over the expansion process."

If we don't use jargon in our scientific communications, we would be repeating information our colleagues already know, and expanding our journals beyond readability (they already are? Oh, well, never mind, then...). The four-page PRL limit would have to be at least eight pages, maybe more. A typical Nature article would be as long as an Economist Special Feature.

We use jargon for, precision and concision. The word means one specific thing, and we invent a new word for something slightly different. And we can use a term like "Mészáros effect" instead of describing the differential equation every time we need to.

I couldn't agree more. As a communicator, I know there are many ways to say a thing. It is my responsibility to choose among them. As a listener, I will rate your words accordingly. It will not be my fault if I fail to understand. I might be wrong at that but it will not matter. If I can't understand as the listener you it's your fault as the communicator. I will leave the encounter convinced you don't know how to reach me.

Of course as a responsible listener I should do my best to understand both how to listen and enough of the topic to hold my own. The basic equation will hold whether I have done my job as a listener or not. That's the particular fire a communicator encounters. If you can't stand that heat then get out. Misunderstanding is inevitable. It is nearly always somewhat the fault of the communicator.

...and that's why mainstream journalism almost never produces decent science stories.

"If I can’t understand as the listener you it’s your fault as the communicator"

ONLY if their intent was to inform YOU and you also made a genuine intent to understand. Look at all the pseudoscientists "misunderstanding" terms like risk and probability in, of course, Global Warming, but also vaccines, nuclear power, evolution and any other hot-button topic.

But if you haven't bothered to genuinely try, then you're just indulging your sense of entitlement.

Great post. I like the idea of taking a near-unintelligible sentence and leading readers through it until it makes sense and having learned something about the universe along the way.

"But the photons — the particles of light — also have their wavelength stretched, which means they get redshifted and lose energy"

How does the expansion explains the loss of energy? If I stretch a balloon more out, the wave becomes larger but the tension also becomes bigger, so how come the photon is doing the opposite ... losing energy?

I do believe the energy of an EM wave is related to the frequency, so when the redshift occurs, the frequency drops, and so does the energy. You wouldn't see this effect in other waves, as it's a consequence of the way photons behave.

I'm not a physicist though, so I don't know the exact relation, or the exact explanation.

"How does the expansion explains the loss of energy?"

Because its frequency is being changed. And that is proportional to the energy. Changing one changes the other.

Wow,

If the frequency goes down, than how do know that the photon is keeping its momentum?

It isn't.

The title of this thread is "Say something smart" not "say something stupid".

"It isn’t."

Are you saying it isn't keeping it's momentum?

I asked this is because on some site it says that 'Tired Light' can not work because:

"There is no known interaction that can degrade a photon's energy without also changing its momentum, ..."

So I presumed that stretching a photon by expanding space, meant keeping it's momentum.

But on the other hand there are two types of momentum when it comes to light:

"According to Barnett, however, both formulations are correct. He says that the one put forward by Abraham corresponds to a body's "kinetic momentum" – its mass multiplied by its velocity. Minkowski's momentum, on the other hand, is a body's "canonical momentum" – Planck's constant divided by its de Broglie wavelength. "These two formulations reflect the fact that in different situations momentum does different things," he adds. "In free space they coincide, but not when inside a medium.""
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/feb/26/both-answers-corre…

@Chelle (6:40 am): Your question is a good one, and could better be rephrased as, "If the cosmological expansion leads to a constant redshift of all photons originally emitted, doesn't that violate conservation of energy?"

The usual "answer" (and I put it in quotes on purpose), is that energy conservation is a local phenomenon, and the Universe as a whole is exempt. That is both unsatisfying and unnerving, since conservation of energy is a _mathematical_ theorem, not just an observational inference.

A quick search found a preprint (http://www.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0511178) which does a nice job of actually answering the question, and explaining rather well that in fact the redshift does _not_ violate energy conservation at all. The author does, in my opinion, rather overextend his conclusions somewhat, but the method is sound.

Since the Universe is comologically flat, we can reinterpret the GR-based expansion as a simple special relativity problem: A bunch of moving points (and hence moving local coordinate systems) in a Minkowski spacetime. The redshifts seen by some observer "at rest" at the origin are purely determined by actual moving velocities, and an observer on the "other side" of one of the moving points would see a blue shift.

It's a good exercise for the reader to show that in special relativity, the ordinary Doppler shift conserves energy.

After working through all the details, the author of the preprint shows that the redshifting photons in the cosmic expansion aren't violating energy conservation.

Further, @Chelle (9:40 am): "If the frequency goes down, than how do know that the photon is keeping its momentum?" It is not. The photon's momentum is given by Planck's constant divided by wavelength. The wavelength is just c/f. So as the frequency drops, the wavelength increases, and the momentum drops.

You can also get this more directly from SR: E^2 = p^2 + m^2 (where p is momentum, and where I have suppressed factors of c). Since m=0 for photons, we have E=p, and the energy and momentum track each other.

I think you might be confusing momentum with velocity. Photons, being massless, always travel at the same speed in vacuum, namely 'c'. Rescattering (index of refraction) reduces their velocity below 'c' in transparent materials.

Who's blowing the balloon my friend? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Who is blowing the balloon of your expanding universe? Will the balloon pop? What happens then? Current physics does not want to deal with the feedback loop that naturally we know exists. And it's ok, because we still do not fully know what is going on, but it must not be ignored and incomplete models should not be given religious credence. Thank you for the information by the way. EL

"Are you saying it isn’t keeping it’s momentum?"

Yes.

I see you still haven't managed to read the title of the thread.

"So I presumed that stretching a photon by expanding space"

Yes, you presume the idiotic all the time. And then continue to draw wrong conclusion after wrong concluson until you get to "All science is wrong, except mine!" bollocks.

You presumed wrong.

You had nothing to indicate you should have presumed as you did.

Your complaints now are all about how YOU got it wrong, but, since you CANNOT allow yourself to be at fault, have decided to dump the error on science instead.

And, yet again, your errors in thinking are due to you taking a metaphor completely wrong. Probably deliberately so you can crow about how "ebil sience gets it all wrong".

Michael Kelsey,

Thanks.

--

Wow,

Stop whining, here is the link to the quote I posted:

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm

Tired light models invoke a gradual energy loss by photons as they travel through the cosmos to produce the redshift-distance law. This has three main problems:

• There is no known interaction that can degrade a photon's energy without also changing its momentum, which leads to a blurring of distant objects which is not observed.

--

btw what's is interesting, is what is in that article I linked to:

""The question is: when is the particle momentum relevant and when is the wave momentum relevant?"

"I see you still haven’t managed to read the title of the thread."
@ Wow
That also goes at you too Wow.
Why don't you explain where Chelle is wrong if you think you know the answer, rather than keep posting weired jabbing posts. Are you some sort of troll?

Chelle, quoting a source:

Tired light models invoke a gradual energy loss by photons as they travel through the cosmos to produce the redshift-distance law. This has three main problems:

• There is no known interaction that can degrade a photon’s energy without also changing its momentum

Nothing Ethan (or Michael or Wow) wrote contradicts this. Energy for a photon is equal to the Planck's constant times its frequency (E = hv; but with a greek nu for the v). Momentum is equal to Planck's constant times frequency divided by c (p = hv/c, but with greek rho for p and nu for v).

As frequency decreases, then, both energy and momentum decrease. Thus, this is not an interaction that 'decreases energy without decreasing momentum.' It is an interacton that decreases energy with decreasing momentum.

Just to add, let me try and paraphrase your source. Your source is making two points:

1. Energy and momentum are linked. You can't change one without changing the other.

2. Tired light models require an energy change without a momentum change. That's a problem.

Now personally, I don't know whether that second statement about tired light models is true or not, and if it is, I don't know what it is about tired light models that requires this. But maybe that paraphrasing will help you understand that the statements you quote are not relevant to Ethan's post, because the change he's talking about is one in which energy and momentum change together. Statement 1 is not violated by universal expansion red-shifting photons.

"Why don’t you explain where Chelle is wrong "

So you think she's right, sideways?

About what?

So far she's asked if the energy of a photon chances why does science say the momentum doesn't. Except science doesn't say the momentum doesn't change.

Or am I supposed to explain chelle's point for her, oh sock of chelle?

"btw what’s is interesting, is what is in that article I linked to:

“”The question is: when is the particle momentum relevant and when is the wave momentum relevant?”"

So what's interesting about it?

" Who is blowing the balloon of your expanding universe?"

There is no balloon.

"• There is no known interaction that can degrade a photon’s energy without also changing its momentum"

And so why did you say, and I quote:

YOU: If the frequency goes down, than how do know that the photon is keeping its momentum?

ME: It isn’t.

YOU: Are you saying it isn’t keeping it’s momentum?

Because according to your quote, scientists are not saying it is keeping its momentum.

There is also no interaction going on in a photon's progression through empty space.

There is one when it goes through a medium in which it encounters interactions with that medium that causes dispersion by changing its speed.

So you YET AGAIN go off half-cocked and make an arse of yourself.

eric,

My first question was in relation to this topic and explained by Michael, how a photon could be stretched, and lose energy just like that. The thing about 'momentum' was probably a misunderstanding from my part, because I understood from that quoted problem, that loss of momentum would "lead to a blurring of distant objects", and that's why I thought there was no loss of momentum in the case of stretched photons, which confused me. But it turns out that there are two types of momentum, one for the wave, and one for the particle, so it's is a bit weird, but than again it's only in a medium.

"because I understood from that quoted problem, that loss of momentum would “lead to a blurring of distant objects”"

This is, yet again, because you do not have the least comprehension of what is going on and merely filter ALL your understanding through a presupposition that science has it all wrong and you have it all right.

You missed out quite deliberately one word to arrive at your deliberate and idiotic misapprehension:

"interaction"

As in:

“• There is no known interaction that can degrade a photon’s energy without also changing its momentum”

"but than again it’s only in a medium."

Wherein it undergoes INTERACTION with the constituents of that medium.

It has nothing to do with "two types of momentum, one for wave, one for particle". It comes from you mixing up free movement through a vacuum and interrupted movement through a medium.

Light does not *need* a medium to progress.

“There is no known interaction that can degrade a photon’s energy without also changing its momentum,..” Ed Wright.

The problem with changing momentum is not the change in magnitude of momentum but the scattering of various photons (i.e. change in direction of momentum vector).
"..which leads to a blurring of distant objects which is not observed." Ed Wright

So, I believe Ed Wright is specifically trying to avoid the scattering problem associated with the usual tired light theory.

We can change energy and the magnitude of the momentum of a photon (without changing the direction of the momentum); in only two ways:
1) Cosmic expansion or contraction (e.g. as in GR cosmological constant)
2) Gravitational redshift (i.e. as in GR time dilation of a photon in a gravitational field, i.e. Pound–Rebka experiment) Hence my attempt pg 36-39; but I need anisotropy at a cosmic scale (Big oops, thus a tricky issue.).

Only in these two cases does the photon redshift without scattering (i.e. without change in direction of momentum) when we change the magnitude of the momentum.

But the trick is not to convince the novice with a new explanation; but myself and the expert. And that involves a rather precise explanation (hand waving doesn't count) and cross checking for consistency with a lot of details from experiment and observation. And having a convincing physical reason for any new extraordinary assumptions (as there surely would be).

The only way forward is a lot of self education. Not an easy task. And here is not the place to explore NEW wild unpublished speculations; the difficult task is to prepare an idea for arXiv publication. It is too easy to confuse the novice. I try to keep my personal speculation on this blog to a minimum; because I want to encourage scientific literacy, not confusion.

Your of special and general relativity is not nearly enough. Nor is mine. So we must keep learning.

"Only in these two cases does the photon redshift without scattering (i.e. without change in direction of momentum) when we change the magnitude of the momentum."

Well, the other problem with gravitational redshift is that it can increase the energy and wavelength too.

"And here is not the place to explore NEW wild unpublished speculations;"

Aye, though it's quite nice to hear of speculation, but unless you've already done the work to prove it more than mere speculation, you shouldn't expect anyone to take a blind bit of notice, nor get crabby when nobody thinks you've got it right.

Wow,

“because I understood from that quoted problem, that loss of momentum would “lead to a blurring of distant objects””

...

You missed out quite deliberately one word to arrive at your deliberate and idiotic misapprehension:

“interaction”

Yes, but there are many people on this planet who wear glasses that are made of a medium that also scatters light, but are used to 'sharpen' distant objects instead of 'blurring', those glasses are called lenses, so isn't it normal that I also thought that the 'loss of momentum' could have caused the 'blurring' that he talked about.

"glasses that are made of a medium that also scatters light, but are used to ‘sharpen’ distant objects instead of ‘blurring’"

So what?

The universe should have gone to specsavers????

Here's a tiny ickly clue for you, troll, the glasses are much more expensive than sand because they have to design the shape VERY CAREFULLY to produce a sharpening.

And why do you think it needs sharpening? BECAUSE OF A LENS IN YOUR FRIGGING EYE!!!!

What an ass.

Chelle:

I understood from that quoted problem, that loss of momentum would “lead to a blurring of distant objects”, and that’s why I thought there was no loss of momentum in the case of stretched photons, which confused me.

Hopefully OKthen cleared up your confusion. AIUI, loss of momentum in a universe that isn't expanding would lead to blurring which we don't see. The tired light hypothesis thus does not fit observation.

But it turns out that there are two types of momentum, one for the wave, and one for the particle, so it’s is a bit weird, but than again it’s only in a medium.

Momentum has nothing to do with the medium. Just look at either equation: p = mv or p = hv. Where is "the medium" represented in those equations?

They are also not two different types. They both represent specific mathematical solutions* to the more generalized concept having to do with the force required to change the motion of the particle in a certain increment of time. It takes force to shift a photon from its path or slow it down just as it takes force to shift a cannonball or slow it down. Thus, a photon has momentum.

If two different solutions are hard to understand, think of it this way. PV = nRT. In a case where n is constant, we can say that V = T/P times some constant. In a case where T is constant, we say V = n/P times some constant. These are not two different types of volume. They are exactly the same concept, volume, calculated differently depending on the case.

"BECAUSE OF A LENS IN YOUR FRIGGING EYE!!!!

There is no need to get upset, all I'm saying is that interaction doesn't necessarily causes blurring, and space is curved around our, Solar System and Milky Way, so there is definitely no need to get upset.

eric,

Here is an wiki-link to that thing about light in a medium:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham–Minkowski_controversy

"Both define the momentum of an electromagnetic field permeating matter. Abraham's equation suggests that in materials through which light travels more slowly, electromagnetic fields should have lower momentum, while Minkowski suggests it should have a greater momentum."

eric,

"loss of momentum in a universe that isn’t expanding would lead to blurring which we don’t see."

I don't think this is true, because there is gravitational redshift that has got nothing to do with expanding space and that isn't blurring anything afaik.

"all I’m saying is that interaction doesn’t necessarily causes blurring"

You;re talking bollocks again.

Which is why I'm YELLING AT YOU YOU MORONIC TROLL.

Got ***any*** idea where the universe is getting its prescription frigging lenses from, you twat?

And there's no need to get upset, all I'm saying is you're an ignorant scumbcket troll with the understanding of the universe of a dead slug.

"because there is gravitational redshift that has got nothing to do with ..."

... anything you're talking about.

Because you're trolling.

It seems to me that this Mészáros-effect is an ad hoc explanation trying to convince people that, using the gravitational effects of cold dark matter, it is possible that ordinary matter density is growing in time. This despite the fact that the universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate.

Talking about momentum. Six billion years ago, there were many more peculiar galaxies than now. Spiral galaxies are taking over in present times.

This can't be due to contraction and increasing momentum and adiabatic collisionless heating, which is the logical conclusion.

NO, this must be because of large amounts of Dark Matter, according to the Lambda-CDM concordance model.

Still there are people that understand that when a stone drops, entropy is increasing - not decreasing. Since all natural changes (like those caused by gravity) tend to increase the entropy.

But the 'Big Bang' had to start with a low entropy in L-CDM.

We are left with a model that tries to explain 95 % uncertainty of this universe.

We have yet another entire sphere of understanding you, chelle, have ABSOLUTELY NO understanding of. Go red a bloody book on the subject:

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/OpticalAberrations.html

"Six billion years ago, there were many more peculiar galaxies than now."

Proof?

"Spiral galaxies are taking over in present times."

Proof?

"This can’t be due to contraction and increasing momentum and adiabatic collisionless heating, which is the logical conclusion. "

We're being chelle-socked here, I deem.

@Wow: Chelle asked some quite sensible questions, as she(?) is trying to understand published statements which have assumptions and knowledge hidden behind them (exactly the point Ethan made in this article!). It is obvious that the two of you have past history in these blogs of which I'm not aware, but at least in this case, the questions and comments are reasonable and deserve a thoughtful response.

@Chelle: The connection of "momentum" to "blurriness" in tired-light models doesn't make sense to me either. Those models don't reject quantum mechanics (and hence, the energy-momentum relationship for photons); in fact, they _rely_ on quantum mechanics to get the result they predict!

Tired light models assume that the "reddening" we observe is due to the light from distant objects being scattered off the intervening intergalactic medium in a non-random way, a way which preferentially takes energy away from the photons.

There are *many* things wrong with that model (wrong in that the observational evidence contradicts it). One of the wrong things is that if photons are scattering, then in addition to their energy being slowly reduced ("reddened"), their _directions_ (momentum) would also be spread out.
Consequently, we would see the photons from very distant objects having a more of a directional spread (blurring) than from less distant objects.

We do not see that (as the Hubble deep fields have shown most conclusively). Therefore, distant photons are _not_ being scattered at the rate required by tired-light models.

Does that help clarify the issue which confused you?

"@Wow: Chelle asked some quite sensible questions, as she(?) is trying to understand "

No she isn't.

She keep jabbering on about tired light, LHC destroying the universe and how everything is a big hurricane spiralling off to another dimension.

Precisely how you can read what chelle wrote and consider it "sensible questions" stumps me.

How, for example (and please please PLEASE answer this!) can you find:

"If the frequency goes down, than how do know that the photon is keeping its momentum?"

a "sensible question"?

As for:
"How does the expansion explains the loss of energy?"
this was answered to chelle several threads ago and she's even tried to use the answer given to "prove" that expansion can't happen because, and get this: SHE THINKS THAT PHOTONS WAVE LIKE WATER WAVES DO. Therefore, since space is expanding in all three dimensions, her idiotic fantasy about photons like water waves have to be getting stronger waves. Ergo, expansion isn't happening.

You may not know this because you may be, frankly, a n00b here, but this is why chelle trolls here.

PS if to you it's " It is obvious that the two of you have past history in these blogs of which I’m not aware", would it not behoove you to READ ABOUT IT *before* coming along like an arse and pronouncing her virginity?

@Wow (2:54 pm): The different populations of early and late galaxies is well-known in the literature, and 6 Gya is a typical (if very fuzzy) boundary quoted. See, for example http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/341708 (one of the few articles I could find which wasn't behind a paywall), or do a search on "evolution of galaxy classification."

The most prominent difference in those populations is that well-defined spiral-type galaxies dominate in late times (< 6 Gya), while elliptical and "chaotic spiral" galaxies are predominant in early times.

So Hannes statements about the observational data are quite correct, and supported in the literature.

His _interpretation_, and simplistic invocation of "entropy arguments", are nonsense. Self-organized structure formation is well understood, and is prohibited by thermodynamics (if that were true, simple crystals would not exist).

Michael,

Yes that helps, thanks. The scattering is indeed a problem when it interacts with visible matter, I'm more interested in the interaction with the matter that fills up the vacuum and that is influenced by gravity and the light we emit. Also the stretching of light in one direction, while space expands in 3 dimensions is a strange thing, plus losing 'energy' along the way.

Jeez, Mick. You're another sock, aren't you.

Here's one for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_82

We have the antenna galaxy, the ring galaxy and lots of other weird galaxies.

And the evolution of condensing galaxies isn't necessarily what hannes was on about, and DEFINITELY doesn't appear to have any connection with dark matter or other misspelt bafflegab (note too the crazy spelling of chelle).

There are several problems with the papers conclusions as you have presented them too. You have conflated elliptical galaxies with chaotic ones (e.g. M82) Early formation of any galactic accretion would tend to have many chaotic elements that will evolve by removal or death of these stars into such features as dwarf galaxies such as the LMC around our own, globular clusters (the oldest features of our own galaxy) and the elliptical core.

Spiral arms are hidden by the chaotic form.

Spiral arms are eaten by the production of stars (they denude the dust that forms the next generation) and hence the oldest galaxies have lost their arms and appear elliptical.

Not that these are the *correct* explanations, but they're ones that fit observational evidence well enough and disagree with the attribution you've given to that paper's conclusion (which may be a two-factor interpretation going on here as opposed to a geunine problem in the paper).

Well, Michael, you can help yourself to the death of intelligence by a thousand half-assed queries from that insane bitch, you're welcome to it.

Dear Michael Kelsey, thanks for some support.

Which of my 'simplistic'' invocations are nonsense exactly?

I am curious. Do you disagree that a falling stone - equivalent to contraction (of space) is not equal to high entropy?

For those of you that are excited about "Tired Light", I would like to point out that the spectrum of the CMB -- not just the average temperature but the spectrum of the photons -- demonstrate the impossibility of Tired Light as a cosmic reality.

There is even a (2-year-old) post that I wrote on it: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/10/08/big-bang-alternative…

Cheers!

Sorry for my last posting. My last question to Michael Kelsey should have been:

"Do you agree that a falling stone – equivalent to contraction (of space) is equal to a higher entropic state (before/after)?"

Thanks for your consideration.

@Ethan: Indeed! I am not excited about the tired hypothesis :-), and I wanted to limit my comment to just the specific issue which user Chelle seemed confused about (and which she quoted). The whole mess is completely inconsistent with the CMB, of course, let alone the the problems it has dealing with specific sources.

On another note, as the owner and high muckety-muck of your blog, do you have conventions or preferences about replying to other users' posts? Long text walls with blocks addressed to each previous post of interest? Separate "individualized" replies? Without threading, it's awkward to end up in a back-and-forth discussion, and I apologize to you for any missteps.

@Chelle (28 Aug 3:32 pm): You seem to have some basic misconceptions about the physics which underlies our modern cosmological understanding. My experience is that such misconceptions, left unchecked, can lead to perfectly logical, but wildly nonsensical, descriptions of reality.

Your concern about light "stretching in one direction" stems from just such a basic misconception. Light is a strictly _transverse_ wave. For light travelling in a specific direction (you can think about classical "rays" from your high-school optics class, or photons; you'll get the same result), the electric and magnetic fields oscillate exactly perpendicular to the direction of travel (and the fields are 90-degrees out of phase with each other).

When you consider light coming out "in all directions" from, e.g., a point source, that light is _composed_ of straight rays, each one an infinitesimal angle away from it's neighbor. For each one of those rays, the E and B fields oscillate exactly perpendicular to the direction of motion.

The cosmological redshift operates purely along the direction of motion of the light! as the light travels along its straight line, and the spacetime it travels in expands, the oscillations of its E and B fields get stretched out (the wavelength goes up, the frequency goes down). The _amplitude_ of those oscillations doesn't change, because they are (a) small, and (b) self-driven by the mutual induction of the fields (that's why it's a wave!).

Since the Universe is expanding uniformly in all directions, _each_one_ of those rays, whichever direction it is pointing, is affected in exactly the same way, so observers, wherever they are, see the same effect.

If you don't like talking about "rays," just say "photon" instead of ray above, and the argument still holds.

@Hannes: You wrote, "Do you agree that a falling stone – equivalent to contraction (of space) is equal to a higher entropic state (before/after)?”

I can't agree or disagree with this statement, since it's not even wrong.

A falling stone (or a collapsing gas cloud) is not in any way equivalent to a "contraction of space." The former refer to physical bodies moving through a background spacetime; the latter refers to a time dependent configuration of that spacetime itself.

As for changes in entropy, that depends, obviously, on changes in temperature. A falling object exchanges gravitational potential energy for kinetic energy, which in itself is a zero-entropy operation. A collapsing gas cloud more than likely increases its temperature due to the increasing pressure and decreasing volume.

Whether that increases or decreases the entropy of the system depends on the details of rate. If the compression is slow enough (adiabatic), then the entropy decreases during compression. If it's fast (non-adiabatic), then the entropy increases.

You have to actually do the math, and not just make blanket assumptions.

@Wow: If you would like to have a civil discussion, I'm up for it. As it is, your comments do not require a response.

Michael,

Without comment numbering or nesting, which the new blogging platform does not appear to support (or if it does, I have not figured out how to enable), all I can ask is that you do the best you can, which you are doing in earnest.

That's all. :-)

Well, seems like you genuinely think these two are "honest brokers" so apologies for calling you a sock (Coby too thought that chelle was honestly questioning).

Sorry too about leaving you to try to talk sense into these two, they're just not open to it.

But I guess there's no learning better than learning yourself.

Good luck.

Ethan,

Thanks for the link to the 'Tired Light' post, it explains indeed very nicely why that theory doesn't work. But I'm not here to defend that particular theory, I am questioning one that is a bit similar, so in this case I was curious about the momentum thing that was mentioned. The idea I have in mind is like I wrote earlier (August 28, 3:32 pm), "the interaction with the matter that fills up the vacuum and that is influenced by gravity and the light we emit.", and instead of 'Tired Light' it could even be something like 'Exited Light', imagine Transverse waves traveling on a river and when they near a waterfall they speed up and get stretched, so the short waves become longer the closer they near the drop. 'The drop' so to speak is our central (Solar System - Milky Way) gravity point, and an other thing is that gravity and light we emit, stretches continuously further out into space influencing the matter trough which it passe, and thus creating an ever increasing area of 'affected' matter (Aether) through which the light from far away galaxies has to travel. It's an amalgam of ideas ...

--

Michael,

"You seem to have some basic misconceptions about the physics which underlies our modern cosmological understanding. "

I wouldn't call it a 'misconception', I am just trying out a different approach one wherefore a photon is like a torpedo that rotates its way through a medium (Aether) and generates perpendicularly waves (Wave-Particle Duality).
A 'Luminiferous' Aether has been thought to be proven wrong because there is no Aether-wind or drift, but wind is only about the friction between two elements. The Aether should be static and the objects moving through it should cause the drifting of light that is being emitted from that object, or the light bouncing off a mirror; but in Quantum Mechanics, something that was unknown at the time of Michelson and Morley, electrons and photons jump instantaneously, so why should there be any drift? And if you have particles that have a volume other than a point, such a torpedo with perpendicular waves, than it becomes problematic if you start stretching space in 6 directions.
It's a matter of zooming-in to what a photon could be, and how stretching space would effect it ... anyway I'm just dipping my fat toe in the water (Aether) ...

Speaking as the sock of Chelle.

Thanks Michael and Eric for answering Chelle’s question, your replies helped me too.
Then, after these replies Wow took the time to explain things as well, instead of moronic name calling.

IMO if you miss out Wow’s posts, you don’t miss anything relevant.

Article title “ Say Something Smart” Wow contributions.
“*before* coming along like an arse and pronouncing her virginity?”
“bollocks”
“I’m saying is you’re an ignorant scumbcket troll with the understanding of the universe of a dead slug.”
“YELLING AT YOU YOU MORONIC TROLL”
“So you YET AGAIN go off half-cocked and make an arse of yourself”
“you twat?”
Now I go into Wow mode.
@ Wow “Why don’t you explain where Chelle is wrong ”
So you think she’s right, sideways?
About what?” No I didn’t say she was right jerk, where in my post did I say that you butthead.

@ Wow “Or am I supposed to explain chelle’s point for her, oh sock of chelle?”
But you continually waste your time name calling when you could just ignore that person’s posts. Something weird about you.

I can do that do, sideways.

In fact have done.

But you're pointless and have no reason to listen so don't.

Try saying something smart.

"@ Wow “Why don’t you explain where Chelle is wrong ”
So you think she’s right, sideways?
About what?” No I didn’t say she was right jerk"

Then why do you want me to explain where chelle is wrong?

PS

1) If you don't know what you want explained (hence the "about what?"), what were you asking to be explained?

2) I asked if you thought she was right. If I'd thought you'd already said she was right, I wouldn't have to ask, would I.

Like I said, try saying something smart.

Chelle:

The idea I have in mind is like I wrote earlier (August 28, 3:32 pm), “the interaction with the matter that fills up the vacuum and that is influenced by gravity and the light we emit.”,

But what is this "matter that fills up the vacuum?" What evidence do you have for its existence? What are its properties? How can we detect it? Why hasn't anyone seen it? You're talking about something that affects the momentum of photons. That should be extremely easy to measure.

Maybe its incorrect to call what you have a misconception of modern physics because you really aren't talking about modern physics at all. But its very confusing when you try and fit modern physics conceptions into your pet model and then question why they don't fit well. Why would you expect them to fit? They probably don't work in your model, because they were developed for a model that basically says your ideas are wrong.

I'll give a concrete example of this confusion: there is no reason to think that equations for momentum will work when describing how photons interact with your aether, because they were developed in a science model that say no such aether exists. When you ask/state/imply that momentum has to do with photon-aether interaction, you are mixing models and garbling what momentum, conceptually, is. It is not that.

I am just trying out a different approach one wherefore a photon is like a torpedo that rotates its way through a medium (Aether) and generates perpendicularly waves (Wave-Particle Duality).

See, this is what I'm talking about. What does the mainstream QM concept of particle-wave duality have to do with generating perpendicular waves in some aether? Where is this aether interaction in the equations that describe QM particle behavior?

The law of conservation and transformation energy/mass
=.
Somebody says: The law of energy conservation
There isn’t such law in physics. There is
' The law of conservation and transformation energy/mass.'
=.
‘ The Law of preservation and transformation of energy/ mass’
is a law about a symmetry and asymmetry in the Nature.

If somebody think that , “ The Law of preservation
and transformation of energy/ mass “ is a simple
bookkeeping calculation of debit-credit he is mistaken.
It is a primitive judgment about one of the most
important Law in Nature.
Why?
Because on the one hand the bookkeeping calculation
of debit-credit is “ a symmetry law”. ( like 1$ is 100 cents )
But on the other hand the life in the Universe begins with
disturb of symmetry.
The occurrence of Life in the Universe is connected not with
symmetry, but with breaking of symmetry.
For something to happen there has to be a "broken symmetry".
( It means 1$ is not equal to 100 cents.)
Here the effect of ‘transformation’ appears.
===============.
If somebody takes only one part of the whole law (preservation)
and ignore the second part of it (transformation) then he is falsifier.
=.

Flatness Problem: To call a spade a spade.
=.

There are many different spaces: 2 dimension space, 3D space,

4D, 5D . . . .. .10D, 11D . . . . maybe more.

There are also ‘ closed’ and ‘open’ spaces.

There are many topological spaces too.

Question:

Which space has the Universe as a whole?

Answer:

It is fact: the Universe as a whole has exactly the

required density of matter to be flat.

The average density of matter in the universe (even

incorporating a dark mass and dark energy ) is equal to

or less than critical density and therefore the universe

as a whole is a flat infinite continuum.

==..

But the physicists refuse to admit this fact .

Why ?

Because they don’t know that to do with ‘ a flat infinite

continuum’. And they ‘ burned ‘ the real infinite flat

cosmological continuum ( using different abstract models )

to rid it of its infinite flatness.

And from Einstein’s time they discus about cosmological

constant that will close the flat- open Universe

into a close- sphere.

==..

The Universe as a whole is an Infinite Flat Universe.

Only in some rare places the Infinite Flatness is breaked.

==..

So, instead to say : ‘ It is fact: the Universe as a whole is flat,

they say: ‘To take the Universe as an infinite flat space - it is

impossible fact. There’s something wrong with the Universe. ‘
=== =..

P.S.

' But I don't want to go among mad people,' said Alice.

'Oh, you can't help that,' said the cat. 'We're all mad here.'

/ Lewis Carroll.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. /

==..

#

How is possible to understand the Flatness ?

How is possible to understand the Infinite Flat Universe ?

What is possible to say about a cold Kelvin space T=0K ?

==.

Flatness is a Vacuum.

Vacuum is an Empty space between billions and billions Galaxies.

Now (!) the physicists think (!) that the Universe as whole has

temperature: T= 2,7K . The parameter T=2,7K is not constant.

It is temporal and goes down. In the future it will come to T= 0K.

#

In my opinion this cold Kelvin space T=0K has old physical -

classical model so-called ‘ model of an Ideal Gas’.

Now we think that model of ‘ Ideal Gas is an abstraction’,

but this abstraction suit very well to another ‘ abstraction ‘,

to ‘a cold zero Kelvin space.’

These two models have negative temperature, and

in these two models there are ‘abstract ideal – virtual particles’.

And to have real model is needed something to change in these

abstraction models .. . .. and this change can be only quantum.

#

Now, let us put an elemenrary particles in the cold Kelvin space:

T = 2,7K ---> 0K. Which geometrical form they can have ?

The answer is: ‘ They must be flat particles.’

Why?

Because according to Charle’s law and the consequence of the

third law of thermodynamics as the thermodynamic temperature

of a system approaches absolute zero the volume of particles

approaches zero too. It means the particles must have flat forms.

They must have geometrical form of a circle: pi= c /d =3,14 . . . .

#

All formulas, equations and laws of ‘ an Ideal Gas’

is possible to use to the Infinire Vacuum T=0K.

=========…

Book ‘ Parallel Worlds’ by Michio Kaku.

#

‘ According to the picture emerging from the WMAP satellite,

a mysterious antigravity force is accelerating the expansion

of the universe. If it continued for billions or trillions of years,

the universe will inevitably reach a big freeze . . . .’

/ page 288 /

In 1854, . . . . Helmholtz realized that the laws of

thermodynamics could be applied to the universe as a whole,

meaning that everything around us, including the stars and

galaxies, would eventually have to run down.’

/ page 289 /

==..

There isn’t thermodynamics without the ‘ Ideal gas’.

There isn’t thermodynamics of cosmos without the ‘ Ideal gas’.

==.===…

All the best.

Israel Sadovnik Socratus.

===.

"It is fact: the Universe as a whole has exactly the

required density of matter to be flat....
==..

But the physicists refuse to admit this fact .

Why ?"

Because it's wrong.

Wow, August 28, 3:42 pm Thanks.

One further clarification?

I think you are saying that there is no observed morphological difference between near and far galaxies (e.g. between 4Gly and 8 Gly)? And that the observed differences are removed when one takes into account obscuring phenomenon (e.g. clouds and globular clusters).

Am I understanding you correctly?

Thanks, I defer to your explanation.

Well, not really, just that there isn't adequate proof that there were more elliptical galaxies in the distant past and that there is a lot of reason to suppose that elliptical galaxies were less common in the past because they need to denude themselves of *internal* dust before they lose their spiral arms.

It's not that there's extinction of distant galaxies by intergalactic dust. The spiral arms disappear from galaxies that have used up most of their available star-building dust because the arms are a feature caused by stellar formation in those regions.

Chaotic galaxies have any arms hidden by the disorganised cloud of stars, rather than any dust.

Neat explanation!

My favorite is Lewis Fry Richardson's:

"Big whirls have little whirls
that feed on their velocity,
and little whirls have lesser whirls
and so on to viscosity."

@ Michael Kelsey:

"The usual “answer” (and I put it in quotes on purpose), is that energy conservation is a local phenomenon, and the Universe as a whole is exempt. That is both unsatisfying and unnerving, since conservation of energy is a _mathematical_ theorem, not just an observational inference.

A quick search found a preprint (http://www.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0511178) which does a nice job of actually answering the question, and explaining rather well that in fact the redshift does _not_ violate energy conservation at all. The author does, in my opinion, rather overextend his conclusions somewhat, but the method is sound.

Since the Universe is comologically flat, we can reinterpret the GR-based expansion as a simple special relativity problem: A bunch of moving points (and hence moving local coordinate systems) in a Minkowski spacetime. The redshifts seen by some observer “at rest” at the origin are purely determined by actual moving velocities, and an observer on the “other side” of one of the moving points would see a blue shift.

It’s a good exercise for the reader to show that in special relativity, the ordinary Doppler shift conserves energy.

After working through all the details, the author of the preprint shows that the redshifting photons in the cosmic expansion aren’t violating energy conservation."

Maybe I am misunderstanding Macleod, but it seems to me he is misunderstanding the problem as that the redshift reduction of photon energy is somehow a GR claim that radiated energy is lost. He discusses how the integrated luminosity of a source is conserved, as well as how a SR model conserve energy on "all events individually".

However the CMB radiation photon density (which is equilibrated so we don't have to figure lumiosity drop from travel from a source) is diluted by expansion. The individual photon energy is lowered by the stretching of the photons as the spacetime they travel in becomes expanded by the redshift. In no way is any photons lost by the first mechanism.

It is a neat demonstration that in a non-GR universe SR would rule. But its relevance to GR cosmologies seems rather restricted. GR has no unique global energy measure, so in that sense there is no problem with noting that redshifted photons have lower energy than when they started out.

If you study the energy of the whole cosmology on the other hand instead of just GR, on the other hand, you can conclude that energy is conserved. It follows from a system analysis that the energy of FRW universes are exactly zero.

I don't know how relevant the study is to cosmology. But to get back to your preamble, I find it satisfying that cosmologies that allow for spatially flat universes with zero energy density sums up to zero energy as a whole. It is also easier (for this layman in any case) to accept universe instanton tunneling, as the paper notes.

However, the option that must be dropped is that GR redshift does not stretch and dilute photons in order to arrive at the asymptotically flat space required.

socratus,

You premise the universe being flat on the assumption that the density of the universe is precisely the critical density. However, we don't know that this is the case. My understanding is that current observations do not rule out the idea that the density of the universe might be exactly the critical density, but they also don't rule out that the density of the universe might be either lower or higher than the critical density. IOW, current observations do not allow a definitive determination of the shape of the universe.

Now, it might appear from observation that the universe is so nearly flat that it would seem unlikely that it isn't. However, it's similar to the fact that many people through history have believed that the earth is flat. The earth does not appear round because we cannot observe (from our normal vantage point) enough of it to see its curvature. ANY surface (or 3D space) would appear to be flat when viewed on a small enough scale. (I'm simplifying; I know there are mathematical surfaces that are not locally flat). Perhaps the universe just appears flat because the observable universe is too small a fraction of the whole universe to allow us to observe curvature.

@ Hannes:

"It seems to me that this Mészáros-effect is an ad hoc explanation trying to convince people that, using the gravitational effects of cold dark matter, it is possible that ordinary matter density is growing in time. This despite the fact that the universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate."

As for "ordinary matter density is growing in time", I think you have to read the post again. Nowhere is it claiming that.

But primarily, the standard cosmology is an integrated theory, not a set of scattered ad hocs.

"Spiral galaxies are taking over in present times. This can’t be due to contraction and increasing momentum and adiabatic collisionless heating, which is the logical conclusion. ... Since all natural changes (like those caused by gravity) tend to increase the entropy."

First, gravitational settling _decreases_ entropy locally. It is the radiated energy that adds up to globally increased entropy.

This isn't surprising, I hear that conversely in confined systems you find that the high entropic states tend to be the ordered ones. (Think of stacking balls into boxes.)

Second, the explanation for spiral galaxies, which now have been found very early, is due to collisional interactions. But in order to model spiral galaxies well, you need to include dark matter.

It is self-consistent too, when you do that it turns out disturbances such as bars moves the DM density peak off center, precisely on the order required to predict the off center position of the ~ 130 GeV Milky Way source that is predicted by WIMP dark matter annihilation.

"But the ‘Big Bang’ had to start with a low entropy in L-CDM."

So? It also had to start with low volume. =D

If it will make you feel better, Susskind has discovered how initial entropy is irrelevant to eternal inflation cosmologies. And those are the natural ground state of inflation, as I understand it.

"We are left with a model that tries to explain 95 % uncertainty of this universe."

I think you mean 95 % of the energy content which were earlier missing. Uncertainty is a statistical measure on observations.

And the standard cosmology predicts observations self-consistently, a first for a cosmology. And I would argue then "a last", because such consistency will likely only mean smaller modifications from here on.

@Torbjörn (29 Aug, 9:38 am): Maybe I misunderstood MacLeod (and certainly his final conclusions make that more likely). I _thought_ he was pointing out that it is possible to do a strictly SR-based (Minkowski spacetime) analysis of distance-velocity redshift, without needing the GR spacetime which "explains" it. If the two descriptions/analyses are equivalent, then you can use the proof that Doppler shifting is conservative in SR to get the same result for distance-velocity redshift.

I agree with you that the FLRW zero-energy metric elegantly resolves the apparent paradox. I was trying to find a simpler approach for a non-specialist.

@Chelle:

Sorry, but you really do have some basic misconceptions. You are using technical terminology, with precise meanings (both linguistic and mathematical) in an entirely nonsensical way. You are making assumptions about the behaviour of the universe which are well-known to be wrong.

If you are interested in learning what the terms you have adopted really mean, and how they relate to physics, I am happy to participate in that learning process.

"That is both unsatisfying and unnerving, since conservation of energy is a _mathematical_ theorem, not just an observational inference."

Except the conservation of energy only pertains to a closed system when all sources are accounted for.

For example: gravitational potential energy is negative energy.

If there are more than four dimensions then the four spacetime coordinates are not closed.

If the universe extends beyond the visible universe, then the system is yet again not closed. A star system at the "edge" is radiating 50% of its energy somewhere we can never see, therefore will "appear" to disappear.

"I think you mean 95 % of the energy content which were earlier missing. Uncertainty is a statistical measure on observations."

This would be correct under my understanding of applicable meanings of "uncertainty".

Lastly this:

"First, gravitational settling _decreases_ entropy locally. It is the radiated energy that adds up to globally increased entropy."

Ignores that gravitation is an entirely attractive force, therefore it exacerbates any irregularities in the system and causes concentration of these positive irregularities at the expense of the negative ones.

The reason why entropy isn't working is because entropy is a concept that was invented for continuous gasses under the assumptions of there being no preferential location for the constituents. This is entirely untrue of gravitationally attractive constituents.

You wouldn't apply Schrodinger's equation to a cat, even if that were an absolutely true and accurate representation of what is going on in the cat because it's unwieldy. But moreover, the equation is tested against quantum-level phenomena and may not be what is "truly" going on in there, but just a usable expression of the small-scale results of the "reality".

@Michael Kelsey

"A falling object exchanges gravitational potential energy for kinetic energy, which in itself is a zero-entropy operation."

True, but the change from potential energy to kinetic energy cannot be done here without the gravitational force doing positive work [not assuming an expanding universe and dark energy].

A dropped stone sooner or later hits the ground. The entropy of a closed system will therefore always increase.
Even if potential energy changes to kinetic energy the energy released will be at a concentrated point in space.

This is only possible with a loss of spacial information. And the gravitational force is not treated differently than any other known natural force here.

-Yes, adiabatic heating in this local universe can be slow, the speed of light is limited. But the entropy increases like any other closed system.

Where am I exactly making 'blanket assumptions'?

@Wow (29 Aug 10:27 am): Energy conservation is a consequence of a mathematical theorem which does not require a "closed system." Verifying it does require that you account for all sources and sinks in whatever system you considering, as you rightly say.

Energy conservation is a particular instance of Noether's theorem (that's theorem with an "M"), which relates any continuous symmetry of the action to a conserved quantity. In this case, time-translation invariance (i.e., the Lagranian is invariant under t -> t+X) requires energy conservation.

Open system, closed system, it doesn't matter. The equations of motion MUST conserve energy. It also doesn't matter how many spatial dimensions are involved. We could live in a 248-dimensional universe, and Noether's theorem would still apply, and energy would still be conserved. Period.

eric,

'But what is this “matter that fills up the vacuum?” What evidence do you have for its existence? What are its properties? How can we detect it? Why hasn’t anyone seen it? You’re talking about something that affects the momentum of photons. That should be extremely easy to measure.'

I could say the same thing about measuring the 'expansion' of the Universe, but for the Milky Way we are talking about an expansion on the scale of the size of a nucleus of an Atom, so how on earth could we ever measure 'expansion' if it wasn't for redshift? Regarding the evidence; there should be now proof that there is a Higgs Field, DarkMatter and DarkEnergy; even Einstein reintroduced an Aether into General Relativity when he wrote; "once again ,,empty” space appears as endowed with physical properties, i.e., no longer as physically empty, as seemed to be the case according to Special Relativity."

--

'What does the mainstream QM concept of particle-wave duality have to do with generating perpendicular waves in some aether? Where is this aether interaction in the equations that describe QM particle behavior?'

Wave–Particle Duality is not necessarily a mainstream QM concept. PWD postulates that light exhibits both wave and particle properties, QM has found a statistical way do deal with this phenomenon, that's all.

Now for the Wave property to happen you need a medium. It is that simple unless you want to claim like Bohr that a human cannot understand this, and that it is some kind of Magic.

To understand this phenomenon you need to look more closely at what these particles are, and how they can be an object and also act like, or generate, a wave. One idea is to look at them as some sort of rotor-object, that screws its way through a medium (Aether).

--

Michael,

"You are making assumptions about the behaviour of the universe which are well-known to be wrong."

Name one.

"Energy conservation is a consequence of a mathematical theorem which does not require a “closed system""

You're wrong.

"so how on earth could we ever measure ‘expansion’ if it wasn’t for redshift"

We don't. Redshift is what we use to measure the expansion of the universe.

If it weren't for the doppler effect, how would a portable speed camera measure the speed of a car? Same reason, same thing.

Wow,

For measuring 'expansion' I posted a drawing of a test-setup in a previous topic (What does the Universe look like beyond our Galaxy?):
http://tinyurl.com/expansion-nw

But the problem is that the expansion is so small for it to be able to measure, conceptually it should be possible though. btw you could measure the speed of a car by using mirrors and trigonometry.

" conceptually it should be possible though"

No. It isn't.

PS Michael, click on that link, see that chelle isn't the apparently complete noob you thought she was in asking her EXTREMELY BASIC and wrong questions. Given she thinks herself educated on the subject, how do you reconcile the early questions on this thread to that self-image?

Your picture isn't measuring expansion.

The "experiment" Chelle posted isn't even an experiment. Not because expansion is small to detect, but because the whole drawing and aparatus doesn't make sense. It DOES NOT WORK. Period.

ok, Sinisa the drawing might be confusing so I simplified it, here is a new version: http://tinyurl.com/expansion-difference

And that still doesn't measure expansion since the expansion of the aparatus over the 3 nanoseconds it took light to move that distance and the rate of expansion of a single meter will NEVER be able to work in a trillion years.

Wow, stop trolling.

I already wrote that from the start:

"But the problem is that the expansion is so small for it to be able to measure, conceptually it should be possible though."

Chelle... I pointed this before, but you chose to ignore it.

Your light ray "a" travels 1 meter. Your ray "b" travels 2 meters. How are they in tune in the detector?? They are not! That's why I said this doesn't work! You can re-arrange it and "simplify" it all you want, it still doesn't work!

Let's scale your experiment to huge scales... Let's say it's not 1 meter but 1 light year. So what happens? Nothing. Ray "a" reaches detector in 1 year. Ray "b" is still traveling, and traveling...... and traveling... Only after another 365 days (2 years) does the second ray hit the detector. So how are they in tune? And what are you measuring? Yes.. given enough distance (not 1 light year, but a billion), the ray wouldn't reach the detector in billion years, but would reach in billion and one year because of expansion of space. So what? Again, you're experiment is proving nothing we don't allready know. Besides the whole aparatus concept is wrong.

It isn't possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Not in the slightest.

SL has also hit on the other huge problem. You haven't even defined what it is you're measuring nor how you go about discerning it.

You have light hitting at different times, but when does that light "hit"? It takes time to emit and absorb, so there's inherently an error in *precisely* when the light hits.

Sinisa,

For the experiment in the picture you could set a pulse of 0.33 (x 10^-8 per second), so after 0.66 they should be in tune, but once space start expanding they should start getting out of tune (sync), because it is moving towards a difference of 0.5.

"so after 0.66 they should be in tune"

In tune with what?

"but once space start expanding they should start getting out of tune"

They're both expanding at the SAME RATE. 50% bigger in either route.

"They’re both expanding at the SAME RATE. 50% bigger in either route."

precisely... Again... repeating my comments from before. It's the METRIC that expands! Learn what that means first. Up, down, left, right, diagonal, zig zag.. whatever... it doesn't make a difference. The RATE is SAME everywhere. The "straight" ray will get stretched by the same way as a diagonal one even if this experiment worked. But it still doesn't work. There is no preferred reference frame! That "diagonal" ray is straight in it's own reference frame.
By the way, why not the rays same lenght (like in MM experiment)? There's no other way of going about it. Same pulse needs to travel same distance after splitting. But even then, you will prove expansion exists... but wait.. we already know that :)

[eric] But what is this “matter that fills up the vacuum?”... You’re talking about something that affects the momentum of photons. That should be extremely easy to measure.’

[Chelle] I could say the same thing about measuring the ‘expansion’ of the Universe,

We DO measure the expansion of the universe, by observing both the red shift and observing galaxies moving away from each other. This is far, far better than your proposed experiment, because the much larger distances between objects means our instruments don't have to be as precise. Your proposed experiment uses a 1.5 meter length!!! Do you know how ridiculous it is to reject a multi-light year observation of the expansion and then propose a 1.5m observation in its place?

But, nice attempt at a dodge. You have posited an aether that affects the momentum of photons. Given 50 or so years of observation of universal expansion, it is not up to us to do some bonus tabletop experiment to satisfy your skepticism; it is up to YOU, the aether-proposer, to satisfy ours. What experiment do you propose to detect and measure your aether? How do you propose scientists go about testing your hypothesis?

Now for the Wave property to happen you need a medium.

No, you don't. AIUI, in photons the wave-like behavior is a result of alternating eletric and magnetic fields that are orthogonal to the direction of motion. Since these fields originate in the particle itself, there is no medium required to produce the effect.

What I think is going on here is that your understanding of electromagnetic waves is limited to simple analogies: you think of them like ocean waves. In these types of waves, the wave-like behavior is a result of energy transfer between particles, so you obviously need a bunch of particles. But the value of such analogies is limited; photons are not exactly similar to ocean waves and they do not need a medium to show wave-like behavior.

To understand this phenomenon you need to look more closely at what these particles are, and how they can be an object and also act like, or generate, a wave.

I agree. But I think it is you that needs to look closer.

One idea is to look at them as some sort of rotor-object, that screws its way through a medium (Aether).

See, statements like this make me wonder if you have studied what you are opining about at even a superficial level. Anyone taking second semester freshman physics (electricity and magnetism) would know that physicists already know about circularly polarized light, and have for decades. This is not new stuff. You seem to have independently come up with a vaguer, unquantified version of what any freshman physics student would learn about in class. So it really makes me wonder if you have taken any physics at all.

I guess if you haven't, I should give you some points for thinking up somethnig that vaguely resembles a know phenomena. But you lose a lot more points for not knowing very basic stuff that anyone should know before they start claiming or implying that modern physics has it wrong. Why should anyone take your aether idea seriously if you haven't even bothered to learn freshman physics concepts?

@ chelle

p.s. in your "simpler" version even you wrote the correct result. the difference between a&b is 1/2....because ray b has twice the distance to cover. Nothing mysterious about that. Nor surprising. Has nothing to do with expansion.

By the way... you might want to check Lorentz invariant and Lorentz transformations or Lorentz symmetry. You seem to view space and time like Galileo did some 500 years ago. It doesn't work that way.

Wow & Sinisa,

I guess you agree that for A that when I switch the light 'on' and 'off' every 0.33 that they are in tune at the sensor, but for B I have to do it every 0.5 to keep them in sync, because the side route also changes in distance. So yes in both cases the difference is 50% but for a shoter setting, 50% is less, so things should get out of tune. It's a rhythmic thing. Expansion of Space doesn't stretches the beat you set.

We are not in agreement in anything. They are not in tune because the packets won't be the same (i.e. in one event you'll have 2nd packet from the ray B and 4th packet from ray A reaching the detector...useless). Again, why not have same lenght for A and B in the first place? And further more you clearly don't even understand your own "experiment".

"What experiment do you propose to detect and measure your aether? How do you propose scientists go about testing your hypothesis?"

No, what does chelle propose TO DO HERSELF to test her hypothesis?

@Wow (30 Aug 2:44 am): You wrote, "

Yes, you're quite right, and I figured that after her 29 Aug 3:12 am response. She is sticking quite tightly to her misconceptions, and the interpretations she derives from them. That's a pity. I've had similar discussions in the past with a couple of people who had constructed elaborate explanations of QM or cosmology. In one case, they were really interested in learning, and I pointed them at some good introductory books and they completely revised their perspective. In two other cases, "I'm right and all you scientists are in a conspiracy to suppress my brilliance." Sigh.

@Wow (30 Aug 1:53 am):
I wrote, "Energy conservation is a consequence of a mathematical theorem which does not require a “closed system”." To which you replied, "You’re wrong."

Citation, please? There are four conservation laws which are consequences of Noether's first theorem, that any differentiable symmetry of the action has a corresponding conserved quantity. A "differentiable symmetry" is equivalent to a symmetry under coordinate translation.

The fact that physics is symmetric under transformation in spatial coordinates leads to conservation of momentum.

The fact that physics is symmetric under transformation in angular coordinates leads to conservation of angular momentum.

The fact that physics is symmetric under transformation in the time coordinate leads to conservation of energy.

And the fact that physics is symmetric under gauge transformations of the electromagnetic field leads to conservation of electric charge.

All of those are mathematical, provable consequences. Historically, they were all _discovered_ as emprical laws (energy conservation as part of the great development of thermodynamics). It was Emmy Noether's insight that, unlike most physical laws, those conservation laws are more fundamental than that, and are necessary consequences of the basic mathematical structure (symmetries).

Here's a very simple example.

You have a mass of particles in a gravitational field, then you reduce the gravitational field to zero.

If all you were looking at were the particles involved, energy is not conserved.

Could you PLEASE go back and read the message again, I explained three ways that conservation can be unconserved. An additional biggie is the Big Bang itself. Where did the energy come from?

"She is sticking quite tightly to her misconceptions"

You know what pisses me off with that? Two things

1) you've wasted time with her idiocies. That was nice, wasn't it.

2) If someone comes along whilst she's on her psycho rant, they are less likely to get a fair hearing.

3) The threads she bitches on and on about just get bogged down in her claptrap and who the hell wants to read that rubbish?

Michael Kelsey
Thanks for the clarification; but can you clarify more please?
Below is my understanding; what am I misunderstanding?

First, Roger Penrose says, "It is not at all a clear-cut matter to apply these ideas to obtain energy-momentum conservation in general relativity, and strictly speaking , the method does not work in this case... To exemplify the limitations of Nother's theorem in the case of gravitational theory, it should be pointed out that a significant question mark still hangs over the issue of angular momentum in general relativity, even in the case of asymtotically flat spacetimes." pg 489-490 the Road to Reality.

So it appears that Noether's theorem doesn't apply to general relativity and of course all models of our universes are based on general relativity; so Noether's theorem would not seems not to apply the topic under discussion.

Second, a burning candle is an open system; thus conservation of energy does not apply; because we must continuously add energy (i.e. oxygen, for the chemical energy of combustion). Of course, we can turn an open system into a closed system by making it bigger (i.e a burning candle plus a room full of oxygen); but then we have a closed system; not an open system.

And finally, if we account for all sources and sinks of energy of a open system; then why is such an open system not in fact a closed system?

So)
1) Can you give a non trivial example of an open system in which energy is conserved. And explain why such system is open and not closed.
2) Can you discuss how in such an example how the Noether's theorem definition of closed system might differ from a theormodynamic definitioin? Does the Idea (or fact) that Noether's theorem does not apply to general relativity matter regarding this discussion?

Thank you. I appreciate any insight.

Thanks OKThen. Michael's assertion gave me nothing I could think of as even vaguely defensible, leaving me nowhere to start.

The obvious can be *very* difficult to explain.

@Wow (30 Aug 9:25 am):

You write, "You have a mass of particles in a gravitational field, then you reduce the gravitational field to zero. If all you were looking at were the particles involved, energy is not conserved."

But that is not a sensible example (it's as physically absurd as "3D transverse waves.") You cannot "just reduce the gravitational field to zero" with classical mechanics.

What you _can_ do is to move the test particles to infinity; the equations of motion perfectly well allow that, and the particles will be in zero field at that point.

And if you do that, you will discover that you have to supply energy to the particles to get them out to zero field (infinity). The energy you have to supply is exactly equal to the potential energy they gain in moving out of gravitation field.

The "source of energy" for the Big Bang is relatively well understood. It's entirely consistent with a very short lived quantum fluctuation which becomes self-sustaining. Since I'm _not_ a cosmologist (just a particle physicist), I'm merely repeating what I have learned; this is Ethan's area of expertise.

Michael

Wow's science is solid. He explains clearly. If he doesn't know, he says, "I don't know." But he is an attack dog regarding anti-science nonsense.

I get bitten periodically and that's OK; because I appreciate what Wow does out here. I mostly ignor Chelle; but Wow takes on Chelle blow for blow. And with Chelle's unlimited nonsense; that's a lot of blows.

Chelle agenda is antiscience. He doesn't learn; he never says, "I did not know." He appears reasonable; but his only reason (in my mind); is to undermine science discussion (and learning) by deliberately filling this blog with his nonsense comments. He's agenda seems politically motivated.

I appreciate your comments. Thanks.

eric,

You say "something that affects the momentum of photons. That should be extremely easy to measure.’, and I respond to that expansion is even extremely hard to measure, besides using Redshift and I give you an example. And now you start saying how "ridiculous" it is, of course it is, that was the point. And next you start saying what "experiment" I propose, so this is a very absurd question of yours.

After that you come up with this statement: "in photons the wave-like behavior is a result of alternating eletric and magnetic fields …", here you can use the example of the Double-Slit experiment, it has got nothing to do with alternating fields, and it is clearly a Wave property, now how can the photon detect the second slit when there is no medium?

--

Sinisa,

My experiment is very clear, that you don't get it, is harder to get, than getting my experiment.

--

Wow,

Did you now get the experiment? I guess so, otherwise you would have objected by now. And indeed scale is what makes it impossible but this is what we already both agreed upon from the start during this debate.

--

Michael,

Your latest comment is pretty lame, I have nothing against QM and yes I do question the 'Expansion of Space' it seems that if I do so I'm already "sticking quite tightly to her misconceptions", that's an easy way to defend your position, I either I have to convert your vision, or I'm no good, what's the use.

@OKThen (30 Aug 9:36 am) [Man, I wish this system had comment threading! Sigh...]

Your quote from Penrose, and the issue he raises, is correct. But I think you're slightly overextending it.

The problem is that of _global_ four-momentum conservation in GR. Locally, whatever curved spacetime you have can be replaced with a nice flat Minkowski spacetime, along with some "fictitious forces" corresponding to whatever gravitational acceleration and/or tidal pulls there are. Once you have a locally flat spacetime, you're back in SR and ordinary physics, and you get back all the conservation laws I enumerated. But you can't just add up four-vectors from different local places; you have to do the transformations to put them all in one frame, which can't be done uniquely. I deleted a couple of paragraphs I had written about "parallel transport" to explain this.

As for open vs. closed systems. Noether's theorem applies to the equations of motion, and more generally to whatever Lagrangians are involved in the physics. For a candle, that includes the molecular and atomic interactions involved in combustion, and so on.

If you choose, in analyzing the problem, to ignore some of those interactions (which is equivalent to saying that you have an "open thermodynamic system") then yes, you'll end up not conserving energy, and not conserving momentum, and probably not conserving angular momentum either.

That does NOT mean that Noether's theorem is wrong, nor does it mean it doesn't apply. What it is telling you is that you are treating the physics incompletely. Any time you encounter a system where one of the basic kinematic quantities is not conserved, that tells you right away that you have missed (or are deliberately neglecting for simplicity) some part of the physics.

I think I've managed to address both of your final questions above, though not necessarily in order.

"But that is not a sensible example (it’s as physically absurd as “3D transverse waves.”) You cannot “just reduce the gravitational field to zero” with classical mechanics. "

Yup.

But classical mechanics is not a sufficient model of reality to describe the universe. You know, the one we're in. Works well in the limited cases, but you can't extend it outside that without having to prove that extension FIRST.

So, given we're NOT in a classical mechanical universe, the conservation of energy IS NOT appliccable in the manner you proscribe because you're extending it OUT of the sphere it works in (pure mathematics) into the universe.

Prove your extension is valid.

"Did you now get the experiment?"

Yes.

It doesn't work.

You know, Gallileo produced some diagrams for perpetual motion engines.

He was smart enough to know they wouldn't work.

Despite depserately wanting to be an internet gallileo, you are NOWHERE NEAR as smart.

Michael
Thanks for your explanation.

And thanks for elevating the discussion to solid science.

I'll just listen to you and Wow discuss.

Wow I defer to you mostly; but I am not sure that Michael has to prove his extension of Noether's theorem to our universe (because it is not classical). Noether's theorem does not care (in my limited understanding) whether the equations are classical, QM or GR or string theory. Noether's conclusions depend upon mathematical symmetry.

So to my limited understanding. Michael makes sense; and gives me a simple insight. Now that doesn't mean that in practicing theoretical physics the equations are solvable.. but..

Am I missing something?

Michael
In a certain sense (i.e Neother's sense) is the idea of a closed system just a classical fiction; just as the idea of a classical vacuum is a classical fiction (albeit useful fiction)?

The problem I have is more to do with Michael's insistence that conservation of energy is not dependent on being a closed system. As you pointed out, this is not correct.

As to the mathematical theory, a wiggle-look didn't show that Michael was wrong when he stated it was part of classical mechanics, so I took that at face value.

If it doesn't matter, then apart from going "why did you bring it up", no worries.

It still has the unsupported assumption of symetry, And I take it that this is mass/energy symetry, right? But best guess is a universe with more dimensions and that all definitions of such quantities are embedded in the idea of the spaces we observe to exist. If the matter or energy leaks out through one of these other dimensions (e.g. in the compressed state of a Black Hole singularity), we have a loss in the conservation.

Not because it is "really" being broken, but that we don't have any way of measuring.

Lastly, vacuum energy (and the casmir effect) both break conservation of energy. One for small enough values of energy or time that the universe calls "no foul" on it, the other one with the proviso that if you try to get any "free energy" out of it, you're having to do work to do it, ending up with no net benefit.

And Michael hasn't considered the several cases I made for how "loss" (being "apparent loss" rather than real) can happen. E.g. a star interacting with a thing we cannot and will not ever see. Apparently lost the connection because from our FOV, no such thing exists. But from the POV of the star, it very much is visible.

Maybe the way forward is for Michael to go back to the beginning and explain what his issue is when he brought up:

August 28, 11:13 am
The usual “answer” (and I put it in quotes on purpose), is that energy conservation is a local phenomenon, and the Universe as a whole is exempt. That is both unsatisfying and unnerving, since conservation of energy is a _mathematical_ theorem, not just an observational inference.

====

It seems to be reifying the mathematical theorem as somehow supreme to the reality. Whereas, for all intents and purposes, this is "true", it is only contingent on the theory being a good description of reality.

I.e. the CORRECT way to approach this is "if Noether's theory is correct, then we should NEVER see breaking of the conservation of energy". Michael seems to be saying "We will NEVER see breaking of the conservation of energy because Noether's theory says so".

The cart is a long way ahead of the horse there...

Thanks Wow. And yes yes.

But (though I don't understand the math or conceptual details) in my mind Noether's theory is correct, i.e. a fundamental tool of theoretical physics. I speak as an amateur very interested in better understanding symmetry, gauge theory, groups and yes Noether's theory.

I am sure there is a domain of relevance for Noether's theorem; but I await Michael's explanation.

One of my pet theories is that there is no such thing as a closed classical system; hence my previous question of Michael.

@Wow (30 Aug 11:20 am): I think I see where our mutual confusion lies. Hopefully I can clarify things a bit.

1) You wrote, "As to the mathematical theory, a wiggle-look didn’t show that Michael was wrong when he stated it was part of classical mechanics, so I took that at face value."

Please be careful with the terminology. Noether's statement is _not_ a "theory" (a broad explanatory framework for observed facts, which predicts new observations). It is a mathematical _theorem_, which has been proven mathematically. Think of it as a more sophisticated version of the Pythagorean Theorem, if that helps to keep the difference in mind.

2) "It still has the unsupported assumption of symetry, And I take it that this is mass/energy symetry, right?"

No. The "symmetry" involved is not mass-energy equivalence. It is the invariance of the action function under changes of coordinates.

The coordinate symmetries are fundamental to the meaning of "science" as opposed to magic. Invariance under coordinate translation means that the physics _here_ is the same as the physics _there_. Invariance under time translation means that the physics _today_ is the same as the physics _tomorrow_. Invariance under rotation means that the physics facing _north_ is the same as the physics facing _east_.

Mathematically, if I have a function L(x,t) (where "x" may be any number of spatial dimensions), and I apply a time-coordinate translation t = t'+T0, then I can write L(x,t) = L(x,t'+T0). That may be a very complicated expression in t'. Suppose we going through all of the algebra to rearrange the right hand side into L(x,t') + G(T0), where G(T0) is either zero or constant. If we can do that successfully, then we say that L(x,t) is SYMMETRIC under time translation. Similarly for x = x'+X0, or angular (theta,phi) = (theta'+Q0,phi'+F0)].

If L(x,t) is an action function (Hamiltonian or Lagrangian, depending on how you like to solve the physics) which is invariant for t -> t'+T0, then Noether's theorem guarantees (unequivocally) that the quantity we call energy is a constant of motion -- it is _conserved_ by the physics described by L(x,t).

Noether's theorem applies to any action (Hamiltonian) or equivalent Lagrangian. It is not limited to classical mechanics, nor is it limited to special relativity. It applies quantum mechanically (within the bounds of the Fourier-transform, sorry, "uncertainty principle"), and it applies to local regions of curved spacetime in GR.

3) "And Michael hasn’t considered the several cases I made for how “loss” (being “apparent loss” rather than real) can happen."

"Apparent loss." Exactly so! I think we've been talking past each other, and the rest of your post, to me, reinforces that.

Here's what I would say. Any local process (a star radiating energy, billiard balls colliding, proton-electron interactions at HERA) for which we can write down equations of motion to describe it, will conserve energy.

If you show me a process where energy magically appears or disappears, then I can tell you that you either cannot write down (or solve) equations of motion, or else what you have written down is incomplete. For example, the equations of motion will have to include either a source (or sink) term for the (dis)appearing energy.

Your example of a star sitting right on the edge of our Hubble volume is a great one, but it doesn't apply. Yes, the energy radiated "outward" from that star can never reach us, but that's equally true of the Sun! The energy radiated by the Sun on the side opposite us will never, ever reach us (we might see some tiny number of those photons reflected off planets or asteroids). Does that mean that the Sun does not conserve energy? Of course not. It means that we have a necessarily limited, local viewpoint.

4) "I.e. the CORRECT way to approach this is “if Noether’s theory is correct, then we should NEVER see breaking of the conservation of energy”. Michael seems to be saying “We will NEVER see breaking of the conservation of energy because Noether’s theory says so”."

Almost, but not exactly. What I am saying is that IF we see apparent non-conservation of energy (or momentum, or angular momentum, or electric charge), THEN the system we are considering is incomplete.

I am also saying that if a crackpot comes to me with a claim that they have a complete system, for which we can write down equations of motion (what might be called "closed" in thermodynamcis), and that complete system does not conserve energy (or momentum, etc.), then the crackpot is wrong. Period. I don't have to "analyze" the great invention and point out the specific flaws. They've either built a hoax, or they've made a mistake in analyzing it.

An expanding universe will lose the matter that is retreating beyond the visible horizon of the universe. Such cannot, by definition have conserved mass/energy, even though locally (well within the universe) it remains so.

I.e. the universe is inherently open if the universe itself is.

"It is a mathematical _theorem_, which has been proven mathematically"

But is based under the assumption of a closed system. From the Wiki:

"The formal proof of the theorem utilizes the condition of invariance to derive an expression for a current associated with a conserved physical quantity. The conserved quantity is called the Noether charge, while the flow carrying that charge is called the Noether current. The Noether current is defined up to a solenoidal (divergenceless) vector field."

Where invariance does not pertain, the theorem does not pertain.

"A conservation law states that some quantity X in the mathematical description of a system's evolution remains constant throughout its motion — it is an invariant. Mathematically, the rate of change of X (its derivative with respect to time) vanishes,"

However, since the formulations of mass, energy and so on are based on a continuous universe, such formulations break down when the assumptions no longer apply.

I.e. the original Big Bang (and the singularities of Black Holes) no longer have a continuous nature.

If the derivative is not zero, then it isn't conserved.

And the universe, as a whole, if expanding is definitionally not conserved in mass with time.

Noether's Theorem cannot prove that the universe conserves energy. Only within the universe (locally, even if that locally is 10 billion light years...) does it pertain.

"What I am saying is that IF we see apparent non-conservation of energy (or momentum, or angular momentum, or electric charge), THEN the system we are considering is incomplete."

I think this is where we agree, but see different things because of where we're standing.

The universe is incomplete because bits of it are disappearing beyond our horizon.

"The universe is incomplete because bits of it are disappearing beyond our horizon."

In other words light is losing energy while it is being stretched by 'Expanding Space' and we know jack-shit why, or how, or where that energy is going. And you guys have the nerve to say to me: "You seem to have some basic misconceptions about the physics which underlies our modern cosmological understanding." Truly bollocks.

@Michael Kelsey

"If you show me a process where energy magically appears or disappears, then I can tell you that you either cannot write down (or solve) equations of motion, or else what you have written down is incomplete."

Well, Big Bang theory needs Dark Energy actually.

The sun is born out of gas and dust heating up whilst contracting. Once there is heat enough there is a massive output of energy.

We see a process in time where entropy is produced due to the loss of spacial information and an increase of temperature.

There is an inevitable connection between thermodynamics and the arrow of time. Without contraction there is no light. Without light there is no arrow of time.

The original gas and dust at a low temperature are to be considered in a state of low entropy at largest volume.

The gas and dust finally coalesce into our hot sun with a high state of entropy at smallest volume.

Big Bang theory says exactly the opposite. Starting from an ultrahot spot with smallest volume and highest temperature, but lowest entropy.

To have a solution to this dilemma cosmologists usually have a defence in the line of a remark that the resulting stellar systems and galaxies are highly organized.

That is only partly true. This is not the same situation before and after. Since there is always a loss of spacial information. When potential energy is changed into kinetic energy. When this potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy then 'Space' is still there and having the same potential energy afterwards in your opinion? I don't think so.

But you say 'Yes' because you said: 'A falling stone (or a collapsing gas cloud) is not in any way equivalent to a “contraction of space'.

If "space' is conserved you are adding information to the system. I don't think you are aware of that since you are talking about an open system conserving energy.

In an open system there is unlimited space, because it keeps its inherent properties -including the openness itself. You already admitted before that space itself is equivalent to potential energy.

"An expanding universe will lose the matter that is retreating beyond the visible horizon of the universe."

Am not sure (as a layman) that Huble's horizon can be used in a such a way. Because our visible horizon is not "the end" of the universe. It's not like "here be monsters" beyond the horizon. If it's isotropic and homogeneous, then what's "out there" is same as here. Yes, matter will receede beyond our horizon, but it will not disappear, thus it's conserved. The fact we don't see it anymore IMO is irrelevant. No?

@Hannes (30 Aug 1:54 pm):

You wrote, "Big Bang theory needs Dark Energy actually." No, actually, it does not. The basic model of an inflationary Big Bang, and the FLRW spacetime, does just fine without it. What needs a non-zero cosmological constant (i.e., "dark energy") is the combination of _observations_ (and deductions from observation) that (a) the universe is flat on the largest scales, and (b) the cosmological deceleration parameter is negative.

You wrote, "The sun is born out of gas and dust heating up whilst contracting. Once there is heat enough there is a massive output of energy. We see a process in time where entropy is produced due to the loss of spacial information and an increase of temperature."

Why yes. Gas heats up when it contracts; that's well known and well understood. There is "output of energy" the whole time the gas is heating up. Heat is radiated away, first in infrared, then in visible light. Eventually, the gas undergoes combustion (no magic there either, just well understood physics), and the constituents rearrange themselves into a lower energy state. The excess energy is radiated away, just like a candle flame.

I don't understand what you mean by a "loss of spatial information." Entropy can be meausured either thermodynamically, integrating dQ = T dS, or statistically, by taking the logarithm of the number of microstates of a system. I'm unfamiliar with a formulation of entropy based on volume; can you point me toward something I could read?

"(a) the universe is flat on the largest scales,"

Well, that really doesn't need Dark Energy either, it needs expansion (at faster than light speed), which last I heard was posited as powered by energy in the decoupling of matter and energy (for the last surge), the analogy being something like the latent heat of evaporation being used to drive the heat pump of a refrigerator.

Dark Energy may be a remnant of that last "phase change".

"Am not sure (as a layman) that Huble’s horizon can be used in a such a way"

There's a lot of truth to that, but from what we can measure, the universe is losing mass. We can't EVER be touched by it again. No light, no gravity, nothing. The universe we know has been reduced and thereafter it will act as if that lost matter were never there.

As an entire system, from our POV it's not closed.

Indeed that effect is entirely why the inflation of the early big bang is what's required to make the universe so isotropic on large scales: this entire universe was one small part of a much much larger whole. Therefore seeing a fairly homogenous lump is not some special circumstance but just an inevitable consequence of this being only a tiny part of what used to be.

NOTE: you can use the same method to improve your resolution on a (reflector) telescope: use a screen on the front of the scope with a hole in the front and you can move that hole about and select that part of the mirror which, by chance, happens to be more nearly perfectly shaped.

You lose light and, if you use only one rather than two holes (thereby making a synthetic aperture), you lose again in increasing the dawes limit of diffraction on this smaller aperture.

"In other words light is losing energy while it is being stretched by ‘Expanding Space’ "

The star is disapearing. Nothing about light losing its energy there. Light is stretched because, to it, it has to fit the same number of waves in the same space. From our POV, by the time the event is over, the space is much, much larger.

Very much the analogue of how doppler works.

The sole result of the fact of losing matter in an expanding universe is that the total energy content of the universe cannot be a priory set to a constant.

Chelle, you may know both jack and shit, but this doesn't mean EVERYONE knows as little as you.

Why the insistence that nobody knows any more than you do?

@Wow (30 Aug 4:58 pm and previously): You write, "The sole result of the fact of losing matter in an expanding universe is that the total energy content of the universe cannot be a priory set to a constant."

This part of your discussion really confuses me. I'm not going to say you're wrong, because I really don't understand it enough to make that claim.

As you've alluded, a object sitting right at the edge of our horizon (Hubble volume), is at the verge of disappearing from our sight, as it's recession velocity is equal to c.

But there's an interesting thing. Our horizon is _expanding_. The Hubble flow is slower than the light cone! The result is that, as time passes, the horizon, which contains all of the objects we can see, gets larger and larger. In a million or so years, we will be able to see galaxies which are "currently" a million light years outside of our horizon.

So when you say "losing matter in an expanding universe", I'm not sure what that means. If you mean being able to _observe_ less matter, that's just wrong. As time passes, we get to observe more matter, not less.

And in any event, matter is _not_ being lost to the Universe. It is carried along with the expansion, and doesn't simply vanish into nothingness just because we, in our particular unprivileged location, can't see it any more.

If you think otherwise, that is logically equivalent to believing that all of your clothes disappear and no longer exist the second you close the door to your closet. I feel fairly comfortable assuming that you _don't_ believe that :-) [Others who post here, I'm not so sure about...]

So, can you help clarify for me what you mean?

Wow (30 Aug 4:48 pm): Regarding the flatness problem: "Well, that really doesn’t need Dark Energy either, it needs expansion (at faster than light speed), ..."

Yes, for a fairly brief time (~10^-43 s). Inflation is so infernally effective because it's exponential. You run it for just a dozen or so e-foldings, and you end up with both an amazingly flat spacetime, and with tiny quantum fluctuations in density blown up to sizes that will eventually become galaxy clusters.

"... which last I heard was posited as powered by energy in the decoupling of matter and energy (for the last surge), ..."

Can you point me to a citation for this? There were lots of decouplings in the early universe, but all of them happened long after inflation. Quarks condensed out at something like 1 ns, and the quark-gluon plasma decoupled (to allow the formation of baryons) at ~1 us. At that point, CP violation (my previous specialty) got rid of all but a part per billion of the baryons, and at a few seconds after the big bang, electrons decoupled from photons.

The last decoupling of matter and energy happened about 380,000 _years_ after inflation, allowing us to see the CMB.

Wow,

The debate you're having now, is no different than some kind of theology. The only thing you have is redshift and all the rest is pure imagination, yes you could easily compare me to Galileo just because I laugh with you for building so much out of thin air. No wonder you guys try to demonise an Aether or me for bringing it up, it is to simplistic for you all to grasp, but than again I'm surely a buffoon.

Yup, standard operating procedure for a xtian fundie.

EVERYTHING is religion to a religionista.

"“… which last I heard was posited as powered by energy in the decoupling of matter and energy (for the last surge), …”

Can you point me to a citation for this?"

Not off hand. It was over a decade ago and the only source I now have is the "Science of Diskworld".

"So when you say “losing matter in an expanding universe”, I’m not sure what that means. If you mean being able to _observe_ less matter, that’s just wrong. As time passes, we get to observe more matter, not less."

Not in an expanding universe.

Go look at Ethan's post on this at:

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/07/19/one-does-not-simply-…

Yup, standard operating procedure for a xtian fundie.

EVERYTHING is religion to a religionista.

Are you proving by this that you are a 'religionista', because I have got noting to do with being a 'xtian' or any other religious activity.

But no worries, keep on debating how light loses it's energy while space is expanding, very enlightening ... and sure my plain experiment is wrong, because it is too simple to be true.

"Are you proving by this that you are a ‘religionista’"

Not unless by the Immense Power Of My Will I made you type:

"The debate you’re having now, is no different than some kind of theology"

Though the Jedi Mind Trick only works on the weak-willed. So could be my fault.

Yes, like I said, keep on debating how Expansion of Space makes light lose energy, it sounds a bit like how the soul flies of to heaven making the body 21 grams lighter, and discussing about where exactly it is going, very interesting stuff and some profound insights … please do carry on.

"keep on debating how Expansion of Space makes light lose energy, it sounds a bit like how the soul flies of to heaven making the body 21 grams lighter,"

Hhahahaha.. your ignorance is sometimes hilarious. Funny how you like to portray yourself as new age Galileo yet all your pseudo-science is not forward but actually backward. In some cases even centuries backward. You quote Einstein for your pet Aether, yet it's precisely Einstein's insights that make your "experiment" utterly fail. The fact you don't realize this is both funny and sad. Must be tough living in the Dark Ages golden-boy.

Sinisa,

"You quote Einstein for your pet Aether, yet it’s precisely Einstein’s insights that make your “experiment” utterly fail."

Could you please explain why my experiment would fail according to Einstein's SR or GR, conceptually it is hardly any different than the Michelson–Morley experiment; a light source, a bunch of mirrors and a detector. You said:

"The RATE is SAME everywhere. The “straight” ray will get stretched by the same way as a diagonal one even if this experiment worked."

But it is not necessarily about 'stretching' the ray, it is about sending a light pulse, that needs to travel a longer distance the further space is stretched, or does light also starts to move faster the further space has been stretched?

You also suggested:

… check Lorentz invariant and Lorentz transformations or Lorentz symmetry."

But that is hardly relevant, once you synchronize emitter & receiver which could be influenced by the the Lorentz transformation, you let the 'Expansion of Space' do it's work and things should get out of sync, and if you let a beam of light move round in the a squared mirror setting and have it also move upward like a spiral staircase, than the expansion should even be more noticeable.

Anyway my point was to prove that the detection of Aether could be as difficult as measuring the 'Expansion of Space'.

Note, it was Einstein who came up with the insight that 'gravity' could effect light and make it curve, my thought pattern is an extension of his, namely that the emission of light could effect the Aether that he reintroduced in GR and that gave again physical properties to the empty space from SR.

Emitted light would gradually affect empty space (Aether) it the same way that Gravity does for GR, only on a much weaker scale. Let's say that the Cosmic Microwave Background represents the temperature of the Aether, and it has an average temperature of 2.725 K, but because of the emission of light it is cooler where we live, just like how the vaporization of a perfume cools you skin, so light traveling in our direction would speed up and be stretched out in our proximity. btw our light (Sun and Milky Way), is still moving further and further into space at the speed of light, so there's no *Hocus Pocus* involved such as space being stretched, and no going back to the Dark Ages, it is about taking it one step further, and embedding the *effect* that light has on the temperature of empty space (Aether).

"Could you please explain why my experiment would fail according to Einstein’s SR or GR, "

We have.

Several times.

You keep responding with "Nuh-uh". It's about as far as reasoning takes you.

"or does light also starts to move faster the further space has been stretched?"

No.

" " … check Lorentz invariant and Lorentz transformations or Lorentz symmetry.”

But that is hardly relevant,"

Not when you're talking about SR and GR. that's like saying "addition is hardly relevant to finding the total of my hotel bill".

"Anyway my point was to prove that the detection of Aether could be as difficult as measuring the ‘Expansion of Space’."

It's far far more difficult. It's as difficult as detecting unicorns in your sock drawer beause the Aether doesn't exist. Whereas it's easy to measure the expansion of space. It's been done.

"Emitted light would gradually affect empty space (Aether) it the same way that Gravity does for GR"

It doesn't affect empty space and there's no such thing as Aether.

ok, than I'm wrong.

That's OK. It's not *bad* to be wrong.

Wow,

The only reason I said "ok, than I’m wrong." was to stop you from commenting on everything I have to say, can't you do that just for once, can't you control your compulsive need spew.

Well, you should have been commenting on how you were wrong.

I guess I was wrong about you admitting mistake.

@Chelle
I ignore Wow's posts,but saw you are asking something of Wow.
" was to stop you from commenting on everything I have to say, can’t you do that just for once"

Haven't you realised yet your asking something of an ill person.
You are made for each other

@Michael Kelsey (and all other bloggers here),

Thank you,

'Entropy' is one of the most confusing elements in its present scientific presentation, I think.

The contraction of a system to a smaller volume of space has an entropy-decreasing effect, says Boltzmann statistics.

But contraction also raises the temperature of that system, and this has an entropy-increasing effect. Because the number of free photons the sun produces, increases.

This is really a dilemma. Boltzmann used for his inspiration an ideal gas. Unlike any other material in a gravitational field all gasses tend to spread out evenly until all available molecules are evenly distributed. There is no temperature difference between before and after. An ideal gas at the top has the same temperature as at the bottom, even in a gravitational field.

But:

'As a gravitationally-bound system contracts, the frequency of the collisions between the constituent particles increases, and a certain fraction of those interactions will be so-called inelastic collisions, in which the atoms or molecules are raised into excited energy states. Those excited states decay via the emission of photons, and this electromagnetic radiation is then lost to the surroundings. It is this radiative emission which is the most effective means by which heat is transferred from the contracting body to its lower temperature surroundings. And crucially, the entropy of this radiation is sufficiently huge that it easily compensates, and then some, for the lower entropy of the contracting matter. The total entropy of a contracting gravitational system therefore increases, as long as one counts the contribution from the electromagnetic radiation.'

Quoting: http://mccabism.blogspot.nl/2009/09/star-formation-and-entropy.html

Quite correct, only the 'lower entropy of the contracting matter' is based on Boltzmann statistics of an ideal gas.

So, 'Space' or if you like 'Distance in S=k.log W´, seems totally unimportant in this picture, you are absolutely correct in that. The molecules in an ideal gas don't care about the gravitational field, because the collisions between the molecules are to be considered completely elastic.

When spread out evenly, we call it thermal equilibrium. More 'space' should therefore would be equivalent to 'disorder'.

Thus his conclusion: 'disorder' is equivalent to more space.

I btw really like Johannes Koelman's blog on entropy.

Sideways,

"Haven’t you realised yet your asking something of an ill person."

Yes I know he is crazy, but I think it is because he drinks too much, anyway there is some blockage in his head that prevents him to see space as being filled with Aether, if he could only grasp the connection between the alcohol in his blood that blurs his vision, and how the light that flows into space affects the Aether and our vision of the Stars, than we might have a breakthrough, I hope.

“Haven’t you realised yet your asking something of an ill person.”

Sick of bollocks like the stuff you and chelle spout? Too right.

"but saw you are asking something of Wow.
” was to stop you from commenting on everything I have to say, can’t you do that just for once”"

Have you seen how chelle says "that's it, i'm off" then, five minutes later back again. When brought up on it "Oh, I was kidding".

"The contraction of a system to a smaller volume of space has an entropy-decreasing effect, says Boltzmann statistics."

Nope.

If the number of energy states it can occupy increase, the entropy will increase.

Adiabatic compression/expansion of gasses. No change of entropy.

Go crack open a book.

“Haven’t you realised yet your asking something of an ill person.”

Sick ... Too right.

Good, the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem.

I see your reading comprehension is as terrible as your other academic "achievements".

Terribly good, that is true.

Oh great. You've regressed to a 12-year-old.

"I know you are, but what am I?" ??

That's all you've got left?

I've got one more:

“Thus, once again ,,empty” space appears as endowed with physical properties, i.e., no longer as physically empty, as seemed to be the case according to Special Relativity. One can thus say that the Aether is resurrected in the General theory of Relativity, though in a more sublimated form.”
A. Einstein, Grundgedanken und Methoden der Relativitatstheorie in ihrer Entwicklung dargestellt, (Morgan Manuscript) Einstein Archives 2070.

Repetition is the mother of learning.

You're labouring under the apprehension you're saying something useful here.

Go to the top of this thread and look at the subject.

Try reading once. Let multiple attempts follow after the first...

"You’re labouring under the apprehension you’re saying something useful here."

I do, but you refuse to learn, 'sideways' is right, you are an ill person. It is not hard at all to understand that the Vacuum is filled with Aether. Read what the professor wrote:

"the Aether is resurrected in the General theory of Relativity"

"I do, but you refuse to learn"

Nope, I learn quite readily.

Or is it that I won't learn complete bollocks?

If you say that what the professor says is 'bollocks' than so be it.

Chele, the reason why physicist (including Einstein) decided to let go of Aether concept is best shown right here in this discussion you're having. The moment "Ae" word is mentioned people start to think of it as something material, like you said many times.. "a fluid like". This is absolutely wrong. And you saying Einstein somehow shared your beliefs is as wrong and unjust to Einstein himself. Anyone can read his papers and see what it is he said. The nerve you have to twist his words around is insulting to say the least.

You asked how is Lorentz invariance is relevant to aether, thus clearly showing your lack of understanding of the fundamental subject of discussion. I couldn't care less to change your opinion. God knows there are plenty of psycho websites out there dealing and claiming with aether this and aether that. You are in that crowd and have every right to be there. On the other hand there is physics crowd and some of them are doing theoretical work (or trying to) dealing with some sort of ae-theory. Thus far without success.

I will briefly try to show the errors of your thinking of aether, by providing links and quotes for relevant things. Thus, anyone with willingness to check can see how misguided your attempts are.

What you need to understand is for any modern ae-theory to work, Lorentz invariant needs to be broken. Only when this is experimentaly shown will there be room to even consider such a theory.

"Both terrestrial as well as astronomical experiments have been carried out, and new experimental techniques have been introduced. No Lorentz violations could be measured thus far, and exceptions in which positive results were reported, have been refuted or lack further confirmations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_searches_for_Lorentz_violation

"In 1916, after Einstein completed his foundational work on general relativity, Lorentz wrote a letter to him in which he speculated that within general relativity the aether was re-introduced. In his response Einstein wrote that one can actually speak about a "new aether", but one may not speak of motion in relation to that aether."

Note the last sentence: " one may not speak of motion in relation to that aether.!" Ponder long and hard on this one before you mention your "torpedoes" again. These are your "professor's" words.

Futher more: "Einstein himself pointed out, no "substance" and no state of motion can be attributed to that new aether. In addition, Einstein's use of the word "aether" found little support in the scientific community, and played no role in the continuing development of modern physics."

Note the words... "no substance and no state of motion".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_views_on_the_aether#Einstein…

Further more.. physicist who are working on theoretical models for ae-theory have found this:

"They have found that the resulting Goldstone boson leads to, among other things, a new kind of Cherenkov radiation.
In addition that have argued that spin sources will interact via a new inverse square law force with a very unusual angular dependence. They suggest that the discovery of such a force would be very strong evidency for an æther theory, although not necessarily that of Jacobson, et al."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_aether_theory

again.. until such predictions are experimentaly comfirmed, I do not give it any more credence than to many other wannabe theories out there. Thus far no evidence of new form of Cherenkov radiation has been observed.

So to summerize. Your views of Aether are NOT those of Einstein nor any of his contemporaries, or modern physicists who are working on ae-theory. Your view on aether (a fluid like thing) is only in view with "new-age", hare Krishna, psycho group who had too much psychodelic mushrooms. And this is the reason why aether as a word in physics is not used any more. It bring a whole bunch of misconceptions about it. All of which seem to have found root in you. Like I said in the begining, I care not what you think or believe in. But I find it shocking (to say the least) how little to none you even know of the thing you seem to be a spokesperson for.

What professor? I'm saying what YOU are saying is bollocks.

posted a lenghty reply on chelle's aether interpretation but it still says "awaiting moderation" for 2 days now. Ethan, any idea what's with the comments section?

Sinisa,

Ethan is on vacation. The problem is that you can't post 2 links into one post, because if you do it get's to be 'moderated'. It might be an other problem but if it's this, than you could retry it with only one link, and post the other links in different posts.

oh... didn't know about the link limitation.. ok, here it goes then is several parts...
--------------
Chele, the reason why physicist (including Einstein) decided to let go of Aether concept is best shown right here in this discussion you’re having. The moment “Ae” word is mentioned people start to think of it as something material, like you said many times.. “a fluid like”. This is absolutely wrong. And you saying Einstein somehow shared your beliefs is as wrong and unjust to Einstein himself. Anyone can read his papers and see what it is he said. The nerve you have to twist his words around is insulting to say the least.

You asked how is Lorentz invariance is relevant to aether, thus clearly showing your lack of understanding of the fundamental subject of discussion. I couldn’t care less to change your opinion. God knows there are plenty of psycho websites out there dealing and claiming with aether this and aether that. You are in that crowd and have every right to be there. On the other hand there is physics crowd and some of them are doing theoretical work (or trying to) dealing with some sort of ae-theory. Thus far without success.

I will briefly try to show the errors of your thinking of aether, by providing links and quotes for relevant things. Thus, anyone with willingness to check can see how misguided your attempts are.

What you need to understand is for any modern ae-theory to work, Lorentz invariant needs to be broken. Only when this is experimentaly shown will there be room to even consider such a theory.

“Both terrestrial as well as astronomical experiments have been carried out, and new experimental techniques have been introduced. No Lorentz violations could be measured thus far, and exceptions in which positive results were reported, have been refuted or lack further confirmations.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_searches_for_Lorentz_violation

“In 1916, after Einstein completed his foundational work on general relativity, Lorentz wrote a letter to him in which he speculated that within general relativity the aether was re-introduced. In his response Einstein wrote that one can actually speak about a “new aether”, but one may not speak of motion in relation to that aether.”

Note the last sentence: ” one may not speak of motion in relation to that aether.!” Ponder long and hard on this one before you mention your “torpedoes” again. These are your “professor’s” words.

Futher more: “Einstein himself pointed out, no “substance” and no state of motion can be attributed to that new aether. In addition, Einstein’s use of the word “aether” found little support in the scientific community, and played no role in the continuing development of modern physics.”

Note the words… “no substance and no state of motion”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_views_on_the_aether#Einstein…

and last part....

Further more.. physicist who are working on theoretical models for ae-theory have found this:

“They have found that the resulting Goldstone boson leads to, among other things, a new kind of Cherenkov radiation.
In addition that have argued that spin sources will interact via a new inverse square law force with a very unusual angular dependence. They suggest that the discovery of such a force would be very strong evidency for an æther theory, although not necessarily that of Jacobson, et al.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_aether_theory

again.. until such predictions are experimentaly comfirmed, I do not give it any more credence than to many other wannabe theories out there. Thus far no evidence of new form of Cherenkov radiation has been observed.

So to summerize. Your views of Aether are NOT those of Einstein nor any of his contemporaries, or modern physicists who are working on ae-theory. Your view on aether (a fluid like thing) is only in view with “new-age”, hare Krishna, psycho group who had too much psychodelic mushrooms. And this is the reason why aether as a word in physics is not used any more. It brings a whole bunch of misconceptions about it. All of which seem to have found root in you.
Like I said in the begining, I care not what you think or believe in. But I find it shocking (to say the least) how little to none you even know of the thing you seem to be a spokesperson for.

Sinisa,

"You asked how is Lorentz invariance is relevant to aether …"

That's not true, I asked how it was relevant to my experiment of the expansion of space, not to the Aether

Could you please explain why my experiment would fail according to Einstein’s SR or GR, conceptually it is hardly any different than the Michelson–Morley experiment; a light source, a bunch of mirrors and a detector ...

You also suggested:

… check Lorentz invariant and Lorentz transformations or Lorentz symmetry.”

But that is hardly relevant …

--

Note the last sentence: ”one may not speak of motion in relation to that aether.!” Ponder long and hard on this one before you mention your “torpedoes” again.

I know what this means, it means that Aether can not be used as a reference frame that is all. In regards to that torpedo, imagine one submarine firing one off towards an other boat, than according to classical Aether views you could define where it was going and how fast depending on the static framework of the sea at rest. All Einstein says is that you can not do that, because the Aether hasn't got any 'grip' on matter. But let's imagine that Aether is like a very cold hard butter, and you shoot a projectile (torpedo) through it than it will feel very much the grip of the butter, now imagine that same butter, but very warm, almost liquid, than the grip of the butter on the object is very little, now imagine also the object to be super warm, the grip of the butter on the object becomes even smaller, see where this is going to … you end up with a situation where it looks like as if there is no longer any butter, but still there can be heat (transfer) in the butter/medium/Aether from one group of objects to an other. So yes it can no longer be a reference frame as the cold butter could be.

--

“They have found that the resulting Goldstone boson leads to, ...

again.. until such predictions are experimentally confirmed, I do not give it any more credence than to many other wannabe theories out there.

You might want to check:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldstone_boson#Goldstone_bosons_in_nature

"Because this symmetry is gauged, the three would-be Goldstone bosons are "eaten" by the three gauge bosons corresponding to the three broken generators; this gives these three gauge bosons a mass, and the associated necessary third polarization degree of freedom. This is described in the Standard Model through the Higgs mechanism."

And guess what they have confirmed to be found on the 4th of July?

Turns out that it is the *friction* with the Higgs field that gives them mass.

--

Also check out the links I gave in that 'Can You Get Something For Nothing?'-topic.

I just checked and that last link doesn't seem to work anymore, here's a new one to a back-up:
http://tinyurl.com/Einstein-Ether-review (pdf - 5 Mb)

"Futher more: “Einstein himself pointed out, no “substance”...."

so that whole passage of butter.. for whatever reason you think of it, is totally irrelevant.

You keep on writing "imagine this, imagine that, imagine, imagine"... This is physics chelle, not John Lennon song. Experimental observation or nothing at all. I can imagine myself being a millionare, but that doesn't make my bank account any bigger.

Very nice of you to have ommited Cherenkov radiation from you quote... much more important that bosons.

And by the way, what does Higg's field has to do with Aether. Make up your mind about what it is you are talking about.

As someone here pointed it out to you. It's not on me/us to believe in your theory. It's for you to prove it. Point to some physical experiment or to certain laws and thus to the conclusions. Leave childish allegories about cotton candy and butter. They serve no purpose except to make you look dumb. So far I have seen no scientific research or debate on your part here. That's why I'll always tell you, that what you do is the worst type of pseudo-science and charlatanism.

"“Further more: “Einstein himself pointed out, no “substance”….”

It looks like 'substance' is here used by the author of that Wiki-article, in a perhaps too freely manner, perhaps you could point me to a reference where he actually uses 'substance'. I might be wrong but I believe it is distilled out of this quote:

^ Einstein 1920: We may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an aether. According to the general theory of relativity space without aether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this aether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_views_on_the_aether#cite_note…

And it seems that the author replaced 'the quality characteristic of ponderable media' with 'substance'. Sorry for using here again the 'butter' metaphor but if you cut through with a hot knife through it, it feels like there is 'nothing that has the characteristics of of ponderable media, but still there is a substance. It relates to not being able to 'observe' it.

--

"Very nice of you to have omitted Cherenkov radiation from you quote… much more important that bosons."

I left it out because one mechanism about the Goldstone bosons from the vacuum is proven, in regard to a physical property of the Higgs field in the Vacuum. Why the need for a second smoking gun?

--

And by the way, what does Higg’s field has to do with Aether. Make up your mind about what it is you are talking about.

Read my comments on that other 'Can You Get Something For Nothing?-topic.

"Read my comments on that other ‘Can You Get Something For Nothing?-topic."

so to you Higgs field is Einstein's aether?

It was worth the effort of going where chelle pointed you, wasn't it?

'course, she *could* have told you that herself, but

a) that doesn't waste your time

b) can look, to someone who is new here, that she's not as cracked as she appears

Chelle has form on this obsession over the aether for over 7 years:

http://www.ukskeptics.com/forum/showthread.php/4416-General-Relativity-…

Sinisa,

"so to you Higgs field is Einstein’s aether?"

Yes, in a way it shouldn't be very different than any other kind of medium, in the sense that it has a density that applies pressure and causes friction (mass); and acts as a mediator of 'temperature' (gravity).

--

Wow,

You are being cynical, there is no need for it. I have just pointed out that the door isn't closed, something that a lot of people think is. Maybe my interpretation and what I'm trying to do is wrong, but that doesn't mean that there is no Aether. If you want to think of fields you need to think of Aether; Maxwell did it and so did Einstein.

What on earth are you wittering on about now?

Where did a door come in?

What you're doing is screwing up science by parading woomancering, poorly worded jargon laden bullshit parading as a theory and an ignorance of anything other than your personal desires.

Einstein said that there is no aether.

"Yes, in a way it shouldn’t be very different than any other kind of medium, in the sense that it has a density that applies pressure and causes friction (mass); and acts as a mediator of ‘temperature’ (gravity)."

Well, Higg's field bestows an amount of mass on certain particles, and gravity is curvature of space time. And both are now more or less understood. Or in other words, sorry, those rooms are booked. So what is your Aether? And don't go in DM and DE, cause again.. places takes. What does your aether do exactly (in physics language plz)?

* sorry, the last sentence goes "... places are taken. ..."

@ wow

can't open that uksceptics site. I get 403 Forbidden. Don't know why.

Chelle
Your pretensions to scientific curiosity are an embarrassment to yourself and a waste of everyone's time.

Procrastinate no longer; Say Something Smart or shut up.

Sinisa, Wow & Gabriel,

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/imagination

There is one for each of you, even a couple from Einstein, feel free to pick the one that suits you the most.

Have fun!

SL, all I can say is "works for me".

May be blocked because it is a comment blog.

Chelle, here's one for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen

Stop taking the toke.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
Terry Pratchett

You have to be willing to accept the information, you have to be willing to work hard. You have to be motivated to go to practice with an open mind. You have to be willing to be criticized. Only you can do those things.
Brandi Chastain

I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.
Arthur Hays Sulzberger

As scientists, we keep an open mind, but we have to base our ideas about the past on archaeological evidence.
Zahi Hawass

"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is ..."

Aagh, shut up you sophisticated retard, you can't imagine an Aether even now the Higgs Field is proven and as SpaceTime shows to curve light, what else do yo need as proof.

I'd call this a "Kettle/Pot situation" if it weren't for the fact that the only blowhard with delusions of grandeur here is you, chelle.

I do not suffer from 'grandeur', I accept in all simplicity that there is an Aether just like Einstein said that there was on. It is you who keeps waving all arguments away, and not wanting to get of your throne and kneel and bow your head to the Einstein's Aether.

"Einstein's use of the word "aether" found little support in the scientific community, and played no role in the continuing development of modern physics."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_views_on_the_aether#Einstein…

You who proclaim to be 'modern physics' are strange, and over time you all will be seen as a bunch of weirdo's.

It's only a word Chelle. I asked you before what it is in physical sense. Yet you have no answer. You can't use Higgs field and things like that, because one is not the other. It would be like saying: dragons exist because there are lizards. What kind of argument is that? Lizards are lizards and higg's field is higg's field.
What is your aether?

What "new" does it bring to the table? Or better?

Untill you can answer those 2 simple questions, you can taunt and post quotes all you want, it makes no difference.

Btw as for Einstein, as great as he was he was not infallible. He believed universe was static, he didn't really believe in QM etc.. Just because one is great in one thing doesn't make him God, and doesn't make everything they do or think afterwards proof of anything.

p.s. To digress a bit cause am really tired of the whole "ae" thing. IMHO Einstein was very traditional in thinking about nature (universe). I dare say that it seems he got a bit scared of the picture of the nature his theories brought forward. He had some great insights but think he didn't like all the consequences they provided. In a way that could be the reason why after GR his scientific life was not so productive.

“All our attempts to make ether real failed. It revealed neither its mechanical construction nor absolute motion. Nothing remained of all the properties of the ether except that for which it was invented, i.e., its ability to transmit electromagnetic waves. Our attempts to discover the properties of the ether led to difficulties and contradictions. After such bad experiences, this is the moment to forget the ether completely and to try never to mention its name.”
(The Evolution of Physics Einstein 1938)

SL, you're being given cherry picked quotes from Einstein because chelle has absolutely no credibility (and demonstrates that this is a deserved case at every turn), therefore is trying to parasitise off Einstein's name.

"I accept in all simplicity that there is an Aether"

And you insist you can't be wrong.

Even Einstein says that there is no such thing (1938, after years of trying to get aether to work with observations).

Hence you believe you're better than Einstein.

Wow,

I was wrong about you, you don't need to come of a throne, but get out of your hole.

Sinisa,

So you think the Higgs Field and SpaceTime are two different things, instead of being two properties of the same Aether, and so you think that Einstein's Aether would even be a third thingy. Doesn't giving mass, and gravity affecting mass, all fall very much into the same equation, just like enery and mass does?

"So you think the Higgs Field and SpaceTime are two different things"
Yes.

" so you think that Einstein’s Aether would even be a third thingy"
No. I don't think it's real.

"all fall very much into the same equation"
Then show me this equation where your aether fits.

Sinisa,

When you have e=mc^2 than the only thing you have to do is replace c (speed of light) with excitation of the Aether per cubic volume. When the excitation is lower than the light is slower.

"replace c (speed of light) with excitation of the Aether per cubic volume"

please write the formula

> "please write the formula"

Please design me a symbol for excitement of the Aether and I will do so.

It's your theory, not mine. How do you expect me to verify it or test it with known data if you don't have an equation of it?

Btw, excitation is not a symbol but a property, and as such has to follow certain law/laws, and thus has a certain equation on it's own. Or if it's a calculated value, then write the value.. you don't need any symbols.

"replace c (speed of light) with excitation"

ok.. so c=what?

c = variable

"” so you think that Einstein’s Aether would even be a third thingy”
No. I don’t think it’s real."

And Einstein agrees with you, SL.

"c = variable"

What the hell has finally broken your pitifully puny mind? Even by your standards, that's ridiculous.

a) Bare assertion if you mean "speed of light in vacuum is variable"

b) Idiotically uninformative if you mean "it's a variable in the equation"

c) doesn't answer the question posed.

Wow,

It is variable in the Vacuum alright. You can say, or accept, that it can be variable in relation to the Expansion of Space, I say it changes depending on the excitement of the Aether. Now we have pot/kettle situation, where I say that the soup can change in temperature and you say that the pot is getting bigger.

So Chelle? .. Nothing?

well, thanks for affirming that you are pseudo scientist and charlatan.

char·la·tan
noun
a person who pretends or claims to have more knowledge or skill than he or she possesses; quack.

Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.

"It is variable in the Vacuum alright."

And unicorn is a horse-like creature that doesn't exist.

Much like your c=variable.

Well Sinisa, show me a Vacuum that is energy free, and than I will say that c = constant. Good luck!

hahaha.. and the grapes are sour :D

btw.. again.. i don't have to show anything. YOU need to offer proof.

Show us a hippo with wings and we will say that c = variable.

Good luck!

Sinisa,

Not sour, I'm just saying that a Vacuum does not exists, how do you want me to prove something that does not exist. That's like wanting to prove Wow's feathered hippo.

"I’m just saying that a Vacuum does not exists"

And you're swearing at us for saying you're wrong!

"how do you want me to prove something that does not exist"

We don't.

We want you to prove YOUR ridiculous assertion.

So I'm to take your aether on faith? Is that it? Since you can't provide any equation or experimental observation.

That's called religion. And in essence your argument is a religious one.

Well, this is science and not a religious blog my friend.

Sinisa,

You asked me how the Aerher fitted in the equation, and the proof for the Aether is already there, it is called the Higgs boson, that is related to the Higgs field, that is base on bosons in the Vacuum. So there is no Vacuum, but there is an Aether.

"Aether is already there, it is called the Higgs boson,"

ok so.. eather to you is higgs field...

and by your own words.. E=m(higgs bosson)2

or to you c=higgs boson.... wow..

sorry dude.. but higg's field doesn't interact with photon's.. just one amongst many errors in your logic.

Again, you are just babling nonsense. Discussion finishes as far as I'm concerned.

did you also get the bit about how the sun is cold, therefore all the higgs particles avoid the sun? (or was it gravitons that avoid the sun? both insane options) and that's why the light bends around the sun?

"and the proof for the Aether is already there, it is called the Higgs boson"

Which doesn't cause the propagation of light. The only thing that Einstein saw as remaining from the definition of aether and YOU just threw it away!

No, I said that you needed to replace c with "the excitement of the Aether" that defines the speed of light. The Higgs boson is nothing but a 'ripple' in the Higgs field / the Aether. And particles get their mass factor due to the friction with the Higgs field / the Aether or in more detail the bosons from the Vacuum, remember the virtual Goldstone bosons.

Wow,

The excitement of the Aether is wat defines the speed of light, so I'm not trowing anything out, they are both the same.

"you needed to replace c with “the excitement of the Aether” that defines the speed of light"

Presupposing the answer.

http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2012/09/04/the-ontological-argume…

How like a faithiest you sound...

"Presupposing the answer."

No, I'm only bundling a bunch of facts by using one intermedium, the Aether.

You're bundling a bunch of assumptions.

Go off somewhere quiet and think about what the hell you're doing. Because there isn't a single person here who thinks you have ANYTHING (and I really do mean *anything*) worth listening to here.

So in so far as you've proven the worthlessness of your braindead ideas and idiotic approach, I wash my hands of it. There's no need to demolish your arguments since you've now managed a sterling job of destroying your credibility yourself.

"... you’ve now managed a sterling job of destroying your credibility yourself."

No problem, most people who know me, already know that I am incredible. Anyway there's no need for me to think quietly about what I said, I have a very clear vision, it is you who needs some time off to let it all sink in, please do take your time, and good luck!

Somewhere far above in the comments, Michael Kelsey and Wow had an excellent scientific discussion.
Very nice, well worth re-reading!

Chelle's comments pretend scientific curiosity; while burying discussion with psuedo science and antiscience nonsense.

OKThen,

Go read about the Goldstone bosons in relation to the Higgs and the Vacuum, that is where the real science is, not that esoteric gibberish between Wow and Michael about where the photons are losing their energy while being stretched by Space. It seems that you are more interested in some made up metaphysical philosophy about the anisotropic properties of Space than doing some real constructive thinking.

After working through all of the above, I remember a different quote:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

@Wow: Chapeau for trying, but remember, this way madness lies.

Open letter to Ethan

Chelle wastes everyone's time.
Chelle pretends scientific curiosity and scientific knowledge.
Chelles uses scientific words in support of his psuedo science, antiscience, illogical, nonsense agenda.
His purpose is propaganda, misinformation, half-truths and disruption of discussion; never to learn.

e.g. above, Chelle summarized the informed discussion by Wow and Michael Kelsey as follows:
Chelle, "The debate you’re having now, is no different than some kind of theology. The only thing you have is redshift and all the rest is pure imagination, yes you could easily compare me to Galileo just because I laugh with you for building so much out of thin air. No wonder you guys try to demonise an Aether or me for bringing it up, it is to simplistic for you all to grasp, but than again I’m surely a buffoon."

Wow is a solid scientist (PHD astrophysics) who shares what he knows and also fights the antiscience stupidity on this blog.
Michael Kelsey (PhD particle physics) is a solid scientist who shares what he knows.
I would not wish to loose either from your sites commenters.

Chelle promotes his antiscience agenda.

Do not fall for Chelle's pretensions of curiosity, whining about being misunderstood, etc..

Ethan you have created an open science learning place out here.
Do not allow the likes of Chelle to abuse your hospitality and thus also abuse your readers and other commenters..
Chelle is a serial abuser of your scientific hospitality.

Privately, I recommended several weeks ago to you Ethan; that you should ban Chelle from your site.
I know that is not your way; it is not mine either.

Reread my email to you again.

I don't know what tools you have at your disposal to counter Chelle's malicious anti-science highjacking of your blog.

But somehow the likes of Chelle can not be allowed to ruin honest scientific discussion. Chelle's waste of everyone's time needs to stop.

In my mind, you either lose people like Chelle or you lose science minded people you wish to attract to this site.

You know me well. I'll be watching for your answer.

Chelle,

Instead of arguing your nonsense, how about providing some measurement or observation that would be expected to be different if an aether exists. That is, a measurement whose value is expected to be x if modern physics is correct and whose value would be expected to be y if there is an aether. That's the way to get an unorthodox theory taken seriously, not arguing based on old Einstein quotes and your own misconceptions about modern physics.

Of course, Chelle, your argument from authority is a complete fallacy, BTW. It makes ZERO difference whether Einstein actually did or did not think that the aether exists. While Einstein was a great physicist, he was known to be WRONG on many occasions, especially WRT quantum physics. Or do you honestly believe that there is no inherent randomness in quantum physics simply because Einstein believed that there was not?

" ... if an aether exists."

Sean, if you dip your fat toe in the water and you feel something
touching it from all directions, than you know that there is a medium (aether). Now if you put a lot of energy in the water and you can make a ripple that you can measure, than you know that there is a medium (aether). Now everybody likes to call that medium the Higgs field, and that ripple the a Higgs boson, while I say that that medium is the Aether. But still modern physics needs to say that there is no Aether, because of Einstein ... while in fact I have tried to show you all that Einstein didn't say that there was no Aether, he believed in it, he only lost his believe that we could observe it, but now we have observed it.

OKThen,

Thanks for the flattery, but it is a bad time to write Ethan a letter, he's gone out camping for a whole week. But why don't you start in the meantime an online petition to get this evil villain banned:
http://www.ipetitions.com

Good luck!

Chelle, if you don't like what OJKThen has to say Tough.

Sean, as you can see chelle doesn't have a clue what she's talking about and is making up any old shit analogy to avoid answering the questions. Best idea is to aim to educate others. She'd already done a sterling job illustrating the absence of thought and so losing any credibility.

Wow,

Guess what:

The background Higgs field must have the same value throughout the universe because the light from distant galaxies contains the same spectral lines we find on Earth, showing that electrons have the same mass throughout the universe. If electrons are acquiring mass from the Higgs field, the field is implied to have the same strength everywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_field#Motivation

This doesn't 'fit' with your 'Expansion of Space'.

Of course it doesn't fit! Higgs field has nothing to do with expansion of universe. No one but you claims it has.

This thread has turned rather ironic, hasn't it.

The problem with the chelles of the world is that reductio ad absurdium doesn't work. There is no depths of stupid that they won't see as proof.

"Higgs field has nothing to do with expansion of universe. No one but you claims it has."

Are you sure?

The Higgs field is one of the leading, theoretical explanations for the observed expansion of the universe. But there is no empirically or mathematically conclusive evidence for this cosmological model, nor for the existence of the 10-dimensional strings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_field#Criticism

mmmm. .didn't know that cc is now equated with higgs.. but ok. I take it back. It's one version of explaining DE.

But according to this it's higg's density value that drives expansion. So far you claimed there is no expansion, that it's an illusion. So which camp are you in now? Expansion or no-expansion?

... I'm still in the same camp. I have to, it is the devil who pays me.

SL, there are a couple of things about chelle's posts that you ought to consider before making judgement.

The higgs field is NOT the higgs particle, just like the electric field is NOT the photon.

Chelle is making a deliberate conflation there.

Secondly, the particles are *virtual*. Expanding space doesn't have to have any change to the density of *virtual* particles.

And chelle's use of the wiki link there is a red herring.

*Virtual* particles Wow, sure, and this leads us to the 'Dirac sea' which is a theoretical model of the vacuum as an infinite sea of particles with negative energy. What about dipping your fat toe in that medium. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_sea)

http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr213/harman.htm

Wow, according to you I was first a 'Global Warming Denier', than a 'Religious Fundamentalist' and now I'm a 'Political Activist', what's next? The only thing I'm doing here is questioning the 'Expansion of Space' and preferring an Aether just like Einstein and plenty of other scientists before him, like Lorentz and Maxwell, if there is one thing you could call me than it is 'Old School'.

Wow
Nice link.
As well following up, one gets to the source, a book:
Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science by by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont;

"Sokal and Bricmont set out to show how those (certain) intellectuals have used concepts from the physical sciences and mathematics incorrectly. The extracts are intentionally rather long to avoid accusations of taking sentences out of context... they aim to draw attention to the abuse of concepts from mathematics and physics...
--Using scientific or pseudoscientific terminology without bothering much about what these words mean...
--Displaying superficial erudition by shamelessly throwing around technical terms where they are irrelevant, presumably to impress and intimidate the non-specialist reader.
--Manipulating words and phrases that are, in fact, meaningless.
--Self-assurance on topics far beyond the competence of the author and exploiting the prestige of science to give discourses a veneer of rigor" wiki

etc. etc. yes it sounds familiar.
I'm not sure it is a new approach to disinformation.

Nor do am I sure that the "French intellectuals" are the problem today. I have not read "Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Paul Virilio, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Luce Irigaray, Bruno Latour, and Jean Baudrillard" who are discussed in this book.

Nor do I think any of the science freindly impostures on this blog have read any of those French postmodern authors. However, their method (to use writing that is "deliberately obscure, excessively convoluted, pseudo-scientific claptrap disinformation) has been learned and is being used across the internet to discredit science. This is part of the war against science e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republican_War_on_Science

I believe that one of the few truthful things that Chelle has said (above Sept 6, 2012, 7:41 am) is, "… I’m still in the same camp. I have to, it is the devil who pays me."

Chelle in my mind is a paid science disinformation troll.

"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion." wiki

Ethan
This must stop. Please consider my suggested solutions.

"Chelle in my mind is a paid science disinformation troll."

So the 'Aether' is no longer a scientific subject but 'disinformation', or like Michael Kelsey put it a 'basic misconception'. We can no longer discuss it, it is all black or white, one who dares to questions this is a troll and demonised, and needs to be banned. Seems like your mind is pretty biased against my boss his boiling soup.

Well, OKThen, I think some of it is that the same people who sold snake-oil or ran religion scams (the ones that don't manage to make it as a televangelist, that is) have had to move elsewhere.

Postmodern science.

The chattering classes can no longer talk "intellectual" about religion, which didn't require knowing anything, thereby being entirely up their street, and science required you to know what you were talking about, removing it from the options.

So these people have found their preening self-indulgence in the pseudosciences and postmodern science too.

There they can pretend to be smarter without the hassle of having to work for the accolade.

Wow,

There is no need to bring up all this nonsense after I posted:

*Virtual* particles … this leads us to the ‘Dirac sea’ which is a theoretical model of the vacuum as an infinite sea of particles with negative energy. What about dipping your fat toe in that medium. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_sea)

If you like to call the medium an oil, and the particle waves travelling through it snakes, than that IS a cool idea, but please do stick to the subject matter, if you can.

... and here is an image of what such an Ouroboros snake might look like: http://tinyurl.com/ouroboros-snake-8

Chelle
–Uses scientific or pseudoscientific terminology without bothering much about what these words mean…
–Displays superficial erudition by shamelessly throwing around technical terms where they are irrelevant, presumably to impress and intimidate the non-specialist reader.
–Manipulates words and phrases that are, in fact, meaningless.
–writes on science far beyond his level of competence and exploits the prestige of science to give his discourses a veneer of rigor”
- writes to deliberately obscure, excessively convoluted and promote pseudo-scientific claptrap disinformation to discredit science.

Chelle is an Internet troll, someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

Chelle is part of deliberate war against science. He is not here to learn or to participate in honest discussion; he is here solely to disrupt.

Ethan
It is time for you to implement a comment policy that severely limits the number of comments per blog topic and per day of DISRUPTIVE COMMENTORS such as Chelle.
My recommendations in my email to you today, suggesting blog policies to deal with DISRUPTIVE COMMENTORS, are probably too lenient.

It looks like you are really scared of me, I can't blame you, my master is the worst.

Delusion at its finest.

You piss people off, chelle.

"Delusion at its finest."

No, not at all. My master is Veritas, it is she, the naked truth, that drives me and nobody else. She stands behind me in my quest to find that Wave-Particle dragon that lives within the Aether.

http://tinyurl.com/ouroboros-snake-8

Now you despise her, and that is not a wise thing to do, my dear friend Wow.

The background Higgs field must have the same value throughout the universe because the light from distant galaxies contains the same spectral lines we find on Earth, showing that electrons have the same mass throughout the universe.

and

The ‘Dirac sea’ is a theoretical model of the vacuum as an infinite sea of particles with negative energy.

Chelle,

I really think you need to define "aether" and stop equivocating. Originally, it was believed that all waves required a medium for their propogation. The aether was proposed as the medium for the propogation of electromagnetic waves.

This aether was shown to be unnecessary (note I don't say nonexistent) by several experiments and theories in the early 20th century. Light propogates the same way in all directions without reference to any motion through a medium. Things like the idea of aether drag were proposed to save the aether idea, but really are ad hoc corrections added to save a desirable hypothesis rather than real ideas resulting from observation. It's logically possible that there is an aether needed for propogation of light, but there's no experimental result that demonstrates that this is the case.

Now, you seem to be arguing that ANYTHING that universally pervades the vacuum is the aether. The Higgs field is one prominent example of this. However, the Higgs field simply CANNOT be the aether, unless you are equivocating and have changed your definition of what "aether" is. The aether is the medium for the propogation of light. Light is composed of photons. The photon is one of the few particles that has NO INTERACTION with the Higgs field. How can the Higgs field then be the medium for the propogation of light when it has no interaction at all with light?

Thanks Sean, that is a good analysis of the current situation. What the main question is how could a light particle move through the Aether without showing any sign of the Aether. To solve this mystery you need to stop looking at a particle as a 'dead' object but more as an organism, that works its way through the Aether. 

What I'm suggesting is something like a dust-devil that shows up at one specific spot and stay relatively in one particular place while the wind is blowing at a steady pace, the fact of the matter is that the whirlwind is a bundling of circumstances, but it gives you the basic idea of how to start looking at a particle in a medium, and when you look at it gives you the impression that it is an object on its own, while in reality the object is part of the wind and the air-pressure.

Next you need to think a second object, a Torpedo that has a Rotor that makes the projectile 'peddle' through the water onto a target.

When you combine these two elements, than you have an object that would stay foot (whirl), but one that move also towards the direction it is aimed at (rotating peddle). It would be something like a tornado with wings, that could move in any direction at the speed of the flapping of it wings, and that is only driven by the pressure of the medium, and the rotation around a low pressured spot. Think also of the Bernoulli's principle where fast moving air generates a low pressure area and can hold a ball in place that normally should drop due to gravity.

So what you then you are looking at is something like a tornado/twister (wind up string) that curves 360° around and forms a closed loop, like the Ouroboros that bites it's tail to become full circle, the closure of this loop makes the string bundle its forces in the middle and creates a Torus,  or a figure 8 knot, with a new and more intense dip in the middle, there is now an extra low pressure spot created, just like on the inside of those dust-devils, only the twister-string is on the outside, so things are adding Up. You now have a solid dip within the Aether that sucks up the pressure, processes it and blows it out, generating a setting whereby the Aether seems to just flows through the Torus, but keeps on driving the 'engine' of the wind-up Torus string, or figure 8 knot string. The moment you give it a more defined spiraled profile the looped string with dip in the middle, the object can also start to 'peddle' forward, and at a constant speed, just like a Torpedo. 

I guess it all sounds a bit weird, but it is all logic, and I hope you now see why there should be an Aether to make it all work, even for light 'particles'.

Here is an example of such action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldu6V4xpgMQ

Ok Chelle, so besides being pseudo-science, what does your aether solve that QM doesn't? Any predictions? Any better results? If not.. then it's useless

Chelle doesn't half talk some old wank, eh, Sean.

Chelle,

The simple fact is that aether is not necessary to explain the observable facts about light propogation. If I'm wrong, give me an observation that would be different if your idea were true. That is, if there is no aether, this observation comes out one way, and if your idea is right, then it comes out a different way. Unless you can do this, then all observational evidence is consist with the lack of aether, and there is no need for your idea.

Wow,

Yeah, I tried one more time. I am sure Chelle will come back with some more drivel, but I am done responding. Hopefully our efforts will make those reading this and actually trying to learn something realize that Chelle is full of it.

Sinisa,

• "so besides being pseudo-science"

It is not all pseudo-science, these simulations are realistic, in the sense that they relate to real fluids, except that the particles that make up the fluid in this setting are weightless, it is CFD and pure science. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_fluid_dynamics)

• "what does your aether solve that QM doesn’t?"

If it's relates to reality than it gives you a deeper insight.

This is what scientific research is about, trying things out. And this is why I appreciate 'Sean' his comment when he says; "This aether was shown to be unnecessary (note I don’t say nonexistent)". He has the decency to leave the door open for an Aether and being objective, and willing to listen. What we've had until now is that someone always has to say NO there is NO Aether it is proven, NO Einstein said there is NO Aether, etc. While I have been trying to show that it is not all just black or white.

Science is for a big part just trying things out without knowing what the results will be, so no it doesn't need to predict more things than QM, and no therefor it is not useless.

Now I hear you commenting on me all the time, well what have you got to show, or Wow let us see something that you are doing, anybody else that would like to share what scientific research that he or she is doing, and that is so much *better* than what I am trying to do?

At least you're proven right, Sean.

I know I promised not to do this, but I have to respond to Chelle's latest. I don't want anyone to think I actually think there might be some merit to Chelle's ideas. My point was that ANY idea could be true, if we stipulate that the idea gives exactly the same observations as the currently accepted theory. That, however, doesn't make the idea useful. I would contend that Chelle's drivel might well fall into this category since she can't give any actual observations that should be different if her theory were correct.

Chelle, consider the idea that the universe was created last Thursday, with everything in it appearing exactly as it now does. You were created last Thursday with all of your memories of your entire life, as were any of us reading this. The universe was created last Thursday in such a way that all observations are as we see them.

Now, that idea could theoretically be true; there's no way to use observations to conclude that it's wrong. That doesn't make it useful, however. It's much simpler to assume that the universe is billions of years old, as it appears from observation to be.

I am not a physicist, and I really haven't tried to work my way through your mumbo-jumbo enough to see if there are any observations that would be different if your idea were true. Once more, can you predict anything novel with your idea? If so, please post your prediction so it can be tested. If not, then your idea falls into the same category as "Last Thursdayism". It's not useful, and it's much simpler to just proceed with the idea that there is no aether.

No, it's all special pleading from Chelle, Sean.

The last one boils down to basically "The photons could be like eddies in a fluid, therefore to be eddies in a fluid, there has to be a fluid. Since without there being a fluid for photons to be an eddy in, there has to be an aether otherwise this doesn't work. QID. (Quod Idiot Demonstrandum)".

Chelle,

You have a serious misconception about both how science works and what our point is about your ideas needing to predict something besides what is predicted by QM.

Science most certainly does not proceed typically by "trying things out without knowing what the result will be". New ideas are usually rooted in observation. QM is a good example of this. Classical physics was unable to adequately explain certain phenomena. A good example of this is black body radiation. When you heat something up to a high enough temperature, it emits light. When classical physics, using Maxwell's unified theory of electromagnetism, tried to account for the spectrum of this light, it predicted that the intensity of this light should increase as wavelength decreases. This is not what is observed however. Otherwise, a heated object would glow white, and emit gamma rays at high intensity. QM predicts something different, namely that there will be a wavelength for which the intensity is maximal, and that this wavelength is temperature dependent.

Historically, this was the origin of QM. In order to make this prediction, Planck had to assume that the energy of the charged particles composing the black body could only have energies that were an integral multiple of a constant whose value was chosen to fit actual spectra. This constant is still considered a fundamental constant in physics today, and is named for Planck.

The real point, though, is that even if QM were simply the result of your "throw excrement against the wall and see what sticks" method of science, it still predicts that there are observations that would be different depending on whether or not QM is true. This out-of-thin-air QM would, for example, predict a temperature dependent maximum wavelength in black body spectra.

Now, here's the challenge. You've invented an idea out of whole cloth. What observations are there that would be different depending on whether or not your idea is true. If there aren't any, then your idea is possibly true, but useless, as I detailed in my last post.

Wow, that is correct. The principle is very simple, and nothing new ... except for the additional figure 8 knot next to a Torus, so there would be two types of particles:
• Torus - open - mass -> Fermion
• Fig. 8 knot - closed - screw - constant speed forward -> Boson

And what is also different from the 'old days' that we can try to simulate such a things on a computer.

--

Sean,

You are missing the point, it is not about being better than QM but zooming in to what an elementary particle might be, starting from the most basic assumptions: let's say there is an Aether …

Oh, forgot the "And photons act like eddies in a fluid because they're propagated by the aether".

Thereby closing the circle.

What people call "circular reasoning" chelle likes to think of a chain of thought without any loose ends.

It does ensure that the closed loop of thought is impervious to all attempts to open.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derailment_%28thought_disorder%29

In psychiatry, derailment (also loosening of association, asyndesis, asyndetic thinking, knight's move thinking, or entgleisen) refers to a pattern of discourse (in speech or writing) that is a sequence of unrelated or only remotely related ideas. The frame of reference often changes from one sentence to the next.

And a final dissertation on chelle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asemic_writing

Jump to: navigation, search
Asemic writing from Marco Giovenale

Asemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means "having no specific semantic content".[1] With the nonspecificity of asemic writing there comes a vacuum of meaning which is left for the reader to fill in and interpret

I.e. note how Sean has to do the work to find out what the hell chelle is wibbling on about like a buffoon.

No, go back to my post at 8:25 am where I say:

", the closure of this loop makes the string bundle its forces in the middle and creates a Torus,  or a figure 8 knot, with a new and more intense dip in the middle, there is now an extra low pressure spot created,"

This is the 'empty' room that is created in the hotel.

In psychiatry, derailment (also loosening of association, asyndesis, asyndetic thinking, knight’s move thinking, or entgleisen) refers to a pattern of discourse (in speech or writing) that is a sequence of unrelated or only remotely related ideas. The frame of reference often changes from one sentence to the next.

Well the problem seems to be that you are just not getting it, anyway I wanted to add this in regard to that empty space that was created:

… and that spot is maintained by motion, or enlarged by acceleration, this is the 'shade' or 'temperature container' that I refered to in that other ‘Can You Get Something For Nothing?’-topic.

There is a method to my madness. Take care.

It is all about keeping the wind flowing to keep the eddie going. :mrgreen: