THE DEEP END: Images of a small patch of sky called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field have revealed several of the most distant galaxies ever seen. The newfound galaxies and their associated redshifts are labeled on the Hubble image.
Image: NASA/ESA
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The title of most distant known galaxy has bounced around a bit in the past few years, as various teams of researchers have laid claim to progressively more remote objects in the early universe. Now a group of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope has tentatively identified a new record-holder: a galaxy so distant that its light has taken most of the 13.7-billion-year history of the universe to reach humankind’s telescopes.
By peering back to a time a few hundred million years after the big bang, Hubble spotted the galaxy, known as UDFj-39546284, which appears as little more than a faint smudge of infrared light. The galaxy has already had one turn as the most distant known galaxy—it was previously identified by a different group of astronomers using Hubble imagery but was later supplanted by a more recent, seemingly more distant discovery. The new data, however, suggest that UDFj-39546284 lies at redshift 11.9, corresponding to 380 million years after the big bang. That is even more distant than had been believed, leapfrogging the ancient galaxy back into the top spot. (Redshift, which quantifies how much an object’s emitted light wavelength has been stretched toward the red end of the spectrum in an expanding universe, is the astronomer’s preferred distance measure for faraway objects.)
More important to cosmologists, however, the new researchers identified not just one but seven objects that are most likely distant galaxies, all of which lie at redshift 8.5 or greater—that is, within 600 million years of the big bang. The results of the cosmic census may help researchers determine exactly what happened in the first billion years of cosmic history, when ultraviolet light from the earliest stars and galaxies ionized the hydrogen of the once-opaque intergalactic medium. The epoch of re-ionization, as it is known, effectively lifted a pervasive cosmic fog and left the universe in the transparent state that today allows us to observe objects billions of light-years away.
“Of course the most distant object is interesting,” Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology, lead author of a study to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, said in a December 12 teleconference about the findings. “But it’s the census, it’s the seven objects, that give us the first indication of the population of objects in the heart of this re-ionization era.”
In conjunction with studies of galaxies a few hundred million years later, the new observations offer clues to the pace of re-ionization. “In our article we describe a very smooth decline in the number of objects as we probe back into cosmic history, into this re-ionization era,” he said. “Re-ionization is an extended process. It’s associated with gradual galaxy growth.”
But re-ionization probably began some 200 million years before the earliest galaxies Hubble has discovered. So the beginning of the story may have to wait for Hubble’s successor, set to launch in 2018. “This may well be as deep as Hubble can look into the re-ionization era,” Ellis noted. “But we confidently predict that there will be many galaxies beyond this into the re-ionization era that can be explored with the James Webb Space Telescope.”
Said NASA science chief, John Grunsfeld, who as an astronaut helped repair and upgrade Hubble for the last time in 2009, “We really are pushing Hubble well beyond what it was ever imagined it would do.”
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Add CommentIn this article: "Now a group of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope has tentatively identified a new record-holder: a galaxy so distant that its light has taken most of the 13.7-billion-year history of the universe to reach humankind’s telescopes." Really? From an explosion of plasma? With conclusions taken from 'red shift' measurements that show that the cosmos matches Euclidean 3-space but is given age estimates based on self contradicting non-Euclidian geometry producing relativistic space-time stretching? A development published in an astrophysics journal dealing with galaxy formations may be the dawning of something previously obscured, obscured because of a misconception, a misconception spawned by flawed non-Euclidean geometry in the theory of relativity. Are we ready for a galaxy formation paradigm shift? Check out this FB Note (copy and paste the entire link):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttps://www.facebook.com/note.php?saved&¬e_id=462435587142354
Forming a star in 380 million years seems reasonable, but starting from a chaotic soup of subatomic particles and forming an entire fundamental object like a galaxy in 380 million years seems to strain credibility to the limit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think we are seeing the demise of the concept that the entire Universe, including space-time geometry, was "created" in a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.
Far more likely, given the observations, is that there was a Little Bang 13.7 billion years ago, and the Little Bang was the explosion of a vast metagalactic object in analogy to a stellar scale supernova. The metagalactic object would be just one of countless others on a scale we can hardly imagine.
Just as in the case of a supernova wherein subatomic particles existed before the supernova, so also would galaxies pre-exist the 13.7 billion year-old explosion of the metagalaxy.
We have waited decades for an infinite fractal cosmological paradigm to be given a fair chance. Perhaps we are on the threshold of a major paradigm-change in cosmology.
Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
. . . and just how much data from this study have you guys actually analyzed and genuinely studied? In addition to the pervasiveness of the "God" complex in science is the "me right, you wrong" automatic response to any new study or line of thought. Some much needed study and analysis is needed, gentlemen. You make us all look bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgain, in an expanding universe the density of mass-energy in the early universe was much greater than in the expanded universe. The apparent relatively sparse spatial distribution of early galaxies must represent the subsequent enormous expansion of spacetime.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a result, the formation of early stars and galaxies occurred in conditions much different than those apparent to us. As I understand, it has yet to be determined which came first: supermassive black holes, stars or galaxies. Galaxies may have originated as gas clouds condensed by the gravitation of SMBHs, only then producing stars. The SMBH 'seeds' might have formed rather quickly from rapidly cooling, collapsing gasses in a rapidly expanding universe...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you JT, but at this point in time we do not need excuses, rationalizations, or ad hoc epicycles added on to the old repeatedly-failing cosmological model.
What we need are NEW ideas that can actually get things right.
The standard cosmological paradigm fails miserably on a host of issues: it cannot specify the exact nature of the dark matter, then there is the failed prediction of thousands of "subhalos" around galaxies that are NOT there, then there is the failure of the model to predict cored dark matter distributions in galaxies, etc., etc., etc.
There are new ideas out there that can explain enigmas from subatomic scales to galactic scales, but they are being ignored, with a lot of help from those who are married to the old failing paradigms for reasons of fashion, funding, status, or sychophancy.
Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Big Bang keeps sounding sillier by the day lately, huh.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo theory has ever gone against the second law of thermodynamics and won. No matter how you juggle it, the Big Bang does just that.
Multiple little bangs, big bounce, multiverses, bubbleverses, hyperverse; take your pick. Just let go of the Big Bang already... or wait until the JWST starts finding galaxies from around and before the Big Bang, for your bigger embarrassment =P
Agreed. The hugely over-idealistic original Big Bang Theory is nearly dead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut instead of choosing between a random assortment fantasy replacements, why not choose the ONE that can offer the following?
1. Natural Planck mass ( ~ 0.7 times the proton mass); Planck scale M, L and T are all closely associated with the proton.
2. Resolution of the vacuum energy density crisis.
3. Explains enigmatic physical meaning of the fine structure constant.
4. Explains physical meaning of Planck’s constant – its numerical value and physics.
5. Definitive predictions for the dark matter mass spectrum: planetary-mass and stellar-mass ultracompact objects like quasi-singularities, black holes and neutron stars.
6. A promising path to the unification of GR and QM.
7. Retrodicts masses of baryons, leptons and mesons at the >99% level.
8. Successfully predicted pulsar-planets systems before their discovery.
9. Successfully predicted the exoplanet abundance anomaly for the lowest mass red dwarf stars.
10. Successfully predicted the peak mass of the exoplanet mass spectrum.
11. Successfully predicted billions of unbound planetary-mass “nomad” objects in MWG.
12. Makes over 35 successful retrodictions of fundamental physical parameters for systems ranging from subatomic particles to atoms, to stars, and to galaxies.
Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
@rlholdershaw
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say "random assortment fantasy replacements", but I wouldn't necessarily call the Multiverse or any of its relative hypotheses that, in fact, many prominent Physicists who didn't really buy into the Multiverse now do, such as Lawrence Krauss.
One could come to the idea of the Multiverse philosophically, without science (but that's a different conversation). I just feel that the Multiverse is a very strong candidate in this whole debate.
Why is it I read your latest post and feel like it should be followed by "and all for the low, low price of $19.95! Act now!"...?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "multiverse" conjecture is not even science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is completely untestable and unfalsifiable.
It fails Occam's razor by an infinite degree.
Serious physicists think it is bogus.
It's another golly-gee money-generator for the writers of popular pseudo-science books.
It is also a sad commentary on the deplorable state of theoretical physics and shows the need for a new generation of young physicists who can tell the difference bewteen science and pseudo-science.
Robert L. Odershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
We can agree on that!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto Acoyauh2
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow does the BB theory violate thermodynamics? At t0 (time zero) the universe was in a highly ordered state. It's gone downhill ever since. Seems to fit exactly.
Now at t0 - 1, it's a different question. 8^)
Physicists, like the rest of humanity, tend to be creatures of habit and convention to a larger extent that they would care to admit. Occasionally we are reminded, as in Popper’s description of the paradigm. We tend to stick with it till it really becomes untenable. Gravity – whether Newtonian or according to Einstein works exceedingly well at the scale of the solar system and it is quite possible that we are not sufficiently in awe of this phenomenon, in view of the fact that gravity is the weakest known interaction by many orders of magnitude, compared with electromagnetism. When it became evident that the gravitational interaction on its own apparently does not describe galactic dynamics well, we stayed with the paradigm and postulated gravitational dark matter as a hopefully useful parameter to shore up our pet theory. The relevant “what if” question must consider the possibility that electric/electromagnetic forces are not as exactly neutralized at the galactic scale as they are at the solar system scale. Have the dynamics of neutralization been studied in sufficient depth? As Steven Weinberg has pointed out, even a minute electric charge on e.g. a planet would completely overpower gravity with the same inverse square distance dependence. Before spending more billions on dark matter research, is it not sensible to first exclude electric/electromagnetic phenomena as possible contributors to galactic dynamics? Thanks, Reid Barnes, for jogging a memory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe we may finally be able to see another piece of dandruff next to ours, on that Policeman's Collar. Where's that diamond lens when we need it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo offense Ed, but when you say:
"At t0 (time zero) the universe was in a highly ordered state.",
were you there? Probably not and you are just taking the word of the celebrity physicists.
It does seem highly likely that the OBSERVABLE universe was in a far more compact state 13.7 billion years ago, but no one knows the exact properties of the object that went kablooie (explosion IN spacetime) or Grand Awhooooom (explosion OF spacetime).
It is distressing to see theoretical physicists telling people exactly what was going on 13.7 billion years ago at energies beyond our knowledge when it is mostly pure speculation based on mathematical models that have been pushed way beyond their reliability limits.
We would do better to pay more attention to actual observations in astrophysics, and less attention to non-unique interpretations of the limited amount of cosmological data.
If the boffins have not a clue about the exact nature of the dark matter, i.e., virtually all matter, then they really do not know diddley-squat about the cosmos, and we should stop letting them lead us around by the nose, so to speak.
Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity (predicts exactly what DM is)
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Predictions:
http://www.academia.edu/2042222/Predictions_of_Discrete_Scale_Relativity
In that case, wouldn't the large quantities of charged particles expelled by the Sun, if not the enormous (but finite) magnetic fields of the Sun and Jupiter, affect variations in net 'attraction' effect imparted to the Solar system's planets and moons?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do suspect that static fields of electrical charges produced by the Sun may be responsible for proximal 'fudge factor' included in GR to account for Mercury's eccentric orbit...
FYI - Please see "Inappropriate Application of Kepler's Empirical Laws of Planetary Motion to Spiral Galaxies Created the Perceived Galaxy Rotation Problem - Thereby Establishing a Galactic Presence for the Elusive, Inferred Dark Matter",
http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Dwyer_FQXi_2012__Questionin_1.pdf
Scale Relativity and Fractal Space-Time:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA New Approach to Unifying Relativity and Quantum Mechanics --- Laurent Nottale
This book provides a comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art in the development of the theory of scale relativity and fractal space-time. It suggests an original solution to the disunified nature of the classical-quantum transition in physical systems, enabling quantum mechanics to be based on the principle of relativity provided this principle is extended to scale transformations of the reference system. In the framework of such a newly-generalized relativity theory (including position, orientation, motion and now scale transformations), the fundamental laws of physics may be given a general form that goes beyond and integrates the classical and the quantum regimes. A related concern of this book is the geometry of space-time, which is described as being fractal and nondifferentiable. It collects and organizes theoretical developments and applications in many fields, including physics, mathematics, astrophysics, cosmology and life sciences.
http://books.google.com.br/books?id=QpWaSQAACAAJ&dq=Laurent+Nottale&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7uzLUJ_UBI6y0QHo94HQDw&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAg
That's completely false. You say serious physicists think that the multiverse is bogus, well, that's clearly not true at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yd5uK3lkak
How about Steven Weinberg, is that a "serious" enough physicist for your liking? Nobel prize, very well respected, etc.
Lawrence Krauss, another well respected physicist.
Alan Guth, another well respected physicist.
Of course, I could go on, but why?
I do not accept the the idea that the universe is fractal or self-similar at varying scales, but I also do not accept the idea that multiple universes can be detected from within our own universe. I think that our own universe is discrete - that if anything exists beyond it in space or time we cannot detect it. In that case, the proposition untestable and unfalsifiable - pure conjecture.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo matter how many esteemed scientists and science authors have discussed the possibility, any endorsement in the idea they might offer provides no physical evidence of the existence of multiple universes. That you provide a list of supposed subscribers as compelling evidence is an insult to the reader. If you wish to believe in some fanciful multiverse then please do so, but if the idea ever becomes established within the scientific community on the basis of endorsements by famous people it will still not be science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is long past the time when we should adopt a more healthy skeptical attitude toward the untestable pseudo-science that the high priests of the Church of Substandard Models are demanding that we accept on faith.
Steven Weinberg is the pope of the old failng paradigms and has hyped the strict reductionist fiction for far too long.
As Galileo said: "The authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
Think scientifically and independently.
Stop scophantically accepting the faith-based pronouncements of the celebrity theoretical hysicists as if they were handing down revealed truth.
Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
How did they get the redshift measurement wrong the first time, and know they're right this time? At that distance, it isn't likely they can use cephid variables or some other means to measure the real distance from us. How can they be sure it isn't a smaller galaxy nearer by, that happens to be moving relative to the galaxies near it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn intergalactic distances, wavelength shift must be much more accurate than measuring lateral movement. So how do we know that Andromeda galaxy is going to collide with us in some billions of years and isn't going to miss us?
If it does "hit" the Milky Way, how will "day to day" life be different is planetary systems of that time?
This is a false summation of what I have done, you make it sound like I have accepted some religious based "truth" without any supporting evidence. I'm willing to accept a peer respected Physicist's assertions rather than a priests, or an astrologer's, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile I'm not holding what Weinberg or any other great physicist who thinks the multiverse is very plausible as an absolute end-all be-all truth, what I'm proposing is merely a proclamation that this multiverse proposal HOLDS WATER, it isn't based on nothing, there is indeed something there. Nothing more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAsk yourself one simple question:
What scientific definitive predictions that are prior, feasible, quantitative, non-adjustable and unique to the "multiverse" hypothesis have been offered?
The answer is NONE, for now, and none for the forseeable future.
There is no evidence for this hypothesis and no predictions by which it could be falsified.
A random assortment of 10^500 different "universes' with different properties and different physics - PATHETIC attempt to rescue "string theory" from the rubbish bin of history!
Therefore it is pure speculative pseudo-science.
If you want to make it your religion, be my guest.
Robert L. Oldersaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
I must say, you have misinterpreted my posts numerous times and having re-read my posts, it's definitely not my wording. I in NO WAY claimed anything close that would lead someone to believe that I'd like to make the multiverse my religion. It's absurd to assume that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just got out of a religion and it's extremely liberating, believe me, I'm not looking for another one.
However, on philosophical grounds, if one looks at the sheer improbability of intelligent complex life, if one looks at the sheer amount of improbable things that had to happen for life to be, for galaxies not to fall apart, for there to be carbon, etc. etc. I mean the "Improbable List" goes on and on, for me to think that on ONE try, this all happened is a little hard to swallow. It's like winning multiple consecutive powerball lotteries.(I understand I'm arguing philosophically). I don't think that life (much less advanced life) is inevitable, if there was just an ingredient missing, we wouldn't be here. It's hard to think this happened on one shot, if that were true, I just might have to believe in god!
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/feb/09/fractal-patterns-spotted-in-the-quantum-realm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave a nice life.
I definitely will, same to you. Hope you find a way to eradicate all the "pseudo-science" out there. Good luck.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"By peering back to a time a few hundred million years after the big bang, Hubble spotted..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, what do you know, It was just a day or two ago, I had unequivocally predicted in the Sciencenow blog: "...it is hereby predicted that they we are destined to see [objects] even farther out ..." Please see my comment, no. 4, in:
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/12/hubble-comes-close-to-spying-fir.html?ref=em
And with the improved next-generation instruments and observational techniques, we are in for more surprises. However, we do not seem bedazzled by past observations that found some stars to be older than the universe (or the mother to be younger than some of her kids!); see: Universe Shows Its Age, Andrew Watson, RESEARCH NEWS, Science, 13 February 1998; pp 981-983.
And so, let us prepare for the day when it'll be found that some distant stars are indeed older than the universe they are supposed to inhabit... leading us to a silent and respectful:Requiescat in pace, Big Bang.Amen.
Thank you all, and SA.
Cheers!
www.toe.tv
To an amateur, this is a stimulating discussion. Thanks to all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have an observation, so far not raised in any treatment I've read, regarding our expanding discernment into the past of our universe.
All of the portraits, by whatever wavelength or motion evidence, subtend a smaller and smaller patch of "sky," the farther back they go. They're not far from the end--that is, the beginning--now.
Nothing indicates that the literal picture would change much from pointing your equipment along one azimuth as opposed to any other. So, in theory at least, no matter where you look, you will at some point see/detect the entire 'universe-that-was' concentrating at the center of whatever tiny patch of sky you happen to be looking at. Then you might even see the Big Whatever itself. And if you then swing your instrument slowly, up down and around, settings unchanged, in theory you could never escape the same 'picture.'
My question is, what known or proposed cosmological theory requires/allows whatever you would "see" in both stationary and in-motion observation, and how? Thanks.
IMO, we're really all amateurs here. Despite any statements to the contrary made above, the big bang is by far the most widely accepted model of universal inception. Based on that model, the earliest free emission of light in our universe is represented by the photons of the CMB radiation. Please see:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation
"When the universe was young, before the formation of stars and planets, it was denser, much hotter, and filled with a uniform glow from its white-hot fog of hydrogen plasma. As the universe expanded, both the plasma and the radiation filling it grew cooler. When the universe cooled enough, protons and electrons could form neutral atoms. These atoms could no longer absorb the thermal radiation, and the universe became transparent instead of being an opaque fog. Cosmologists refer to the time period when neutral atoms first formed as the recombination epoch, and the event shortly after of photons starting to travel freely through space rather than constantly scattering with electrons and protons in plasma is referred to as photon decoupling."
As I understand, we will not be able to observe any photons emitted prior to the recombination epoch, as they has all been absorbed by dense plasma of elemental hydrogen.
This condition is somewhat analogous to the process by which photons take many tens of thousands of years to reach the Sun's surface after being initially emitted as gamma rays by hydrogen fusion in the Sun's core. Nothing prior to CMB emission can actually be observed, since all photons had been absorbed by the dense plasma - similarly, we can't see the core of the Sun, only the photons emitted at its surface.
... If you have problems copying the Wikipedia link, use:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMB
Thanks for the layman-speak, a great clear explanation. In a way, though, my question still bugs me since the non-visibility of very early photons is a sort of ghost, a technicality that crops up and prevents our seeing the earlier dispatches.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf that photon absorption weren't the case though, and the only thing standing between us and the view back to 'just after' the Big Thing was the need for increased resolution--once we achieved that resolution, wouldn't the entire universe just after the Big Thing have to appear in our equipment's aperture, no matter where we aimed it? And stay there even as we moved it around the sky--which it couldn't possibly do?
I assume there's something in general relativity that would resolve this paradoxical thought experiment, but what is it?
Hope I haven't abused your patience.
You're welcome - I'm just an old information systems analyst, not a physicist. I'm not sure I understand what your asking, but I'll try to make some pertinent comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I understand, in an expanding universe (even if it did not originate in a singularity), the early density of matter would have been so great that (like in the Sun), photons could not freely propagate. That in itself prevents detecting photons from before the relic radiation of the CMB emission. If ever any light from prior to the CMB emission is definitively detected, the expected dense early universe would be falsified.
Keep in mind that even the Hubble can only detect these most distant galaxies by collecting their very sparse photons over an extended period - the Extended Deep Field image was derived from images captured over a period of 10 years, with a total exposure time over about 23 days. Even the Hubble telescope would not collect enough photons from these distant objects to identify them as luminous objects in a quick pass or short exposure time.
No doubt enhanced detection equipment and methods will improve observational capabilities in the future, but if photons from a given galaxy only arrive at a rate of one per day per square meter of collector, for example, they must be collected over an extended duration to identify the emitting object.
Ignoring technical limitations (most of which I'm not aware of), if a super space telescope were continuously focused on a single area of the sky I suspect there'd be issues with differential motions of objects at varying distances. But if the objective was only to observe the most distant objects in existence, I think they should eventually be detected.
Note that distance approximations derived from redshift use complex cosmological models whose assumptions are critical to distance estimates. I don't know much how these parameter assumption effect results, but I do know that prior to about 2000 they presumed that the expansion of the universe was diminishing in time. Since then it has been presumed that, around 5 billion years ago the universe began to expand at a rate about 10% more than the prior models predicted. The point is simply that these complex distance estimations from redshift are not absolutely reliable, and are subject to future changes. In general, their results should be relatively consistent, i.e., if objects were determined to be observed 15 billion light years away then the universe would also be estimated to be around 15.5 billion years old, etc....
(continued)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think I quite understand what you mean by "... wouldn't the entire universe just after the Big Thing have to appear in our equipment's aperture, no matter where we aimed it? And stay there even as we moved it around the sky..." I suspect you're suggesting that the very small early universe ('almost a singularity') should be observable in a small patch of sky. IMO, the small early universe now appears to us still dispersed across our sky, much as it would have 13 billion years ago. I think that the light from those dense early galaxies has become separated as the time and distance between them and us has expanded. In other words, I think that the most distant objects dispersed throughout our sky were once similarly dispersed in the sky of a planet within an early Milky Way progenitor galaxy. This is just my personal interpretation, however - I can't explain my perspective in the context of GR or any other cosmological theory...
I hope this helps somewhat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjtdwyer: "I'm just an old information systems analyst, not a physicist. I'm not sure I understand what your asking,..."
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But you do have the common tendency to repeat assumptions of the standard cosmological model, and other speculations, as if they were proven fact.
Sometimes you seem to appreciate the shakiness of the foundations of the standard models of particle physics and cosmology, but at other times you repeat their liturgy and beliefs as if there were no questions about them.
Don't worry, the majority of the physics community and nearly all of its devoted students and followers have been doing the same thing for many decades.
We just have to learn how to be good scientists again.
Speculation is ok as long as it is labeled and treated as such. It should be ignored by the science media until it becomes falsifiable via definitive predictions.
We should only accept ideas that have been tested and verified via definitive predictions.
We should consider alternative ideas and whole paradigms with an open mind and healthy skepticism. Even when they conflict with "common sense", consensus and tentative observational "conclusions".
Just say no to pseudo-science!
Robert L. Oldershaw
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
And why is that you repeat my self-depreciating remarks - without any context whatsoever?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose remarks were intended for Voyager - since he/she seemed to me to be addressing me with undue respect.
Likewise, its unfair to present my own conceptions to a commentator that may not be able to distinguish from established physics, without providing context.
No need to worry about me - I'm just a little more flexible than you seem to be.
Mr. Dwyer, sorry to have been a casus belli here, especially with Prof. Oldershaw whose theories I admire, though mine's hardly a meaningful endorsement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI haven't communicated my questions clearly. I'm sure I can do better but don't want to try the patience of other readers who have had enough.
I believe the thought experiment the questions pose is of real interest. I'll commit the cardinal sin of giving my email address here, if you don't mind carrying on the conversation off-line. Thanks.
robschwab3@yahoo.com
I wouldn't worry about it, it seems that while rloldershaw purports (constantly) himself as a true scientist, on a mission to combat pseudoscience, he seems to be strangely lacking in reading comprehension when it comes to other SA commenter's posts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a time of paradigm-change, things get a bit rambunctious.
As with physical exercise, so with exercising the mind: no discomfort, no gain.
I carefully read all posts that seem worth reading.
Some posters are more or less ignorable.
A snippet from an article on news.Discovery
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"If dark energy were slightly stronger the universe would have blown apart before stars formed. Any weaker and the universe would have imploded long ago. Its incredibly anemic value has been seen as circumstantial evidence for parallel universes with their own flavor of dark energy that is typically destructive. It's as if our universe won the lottery and got all the physical parameters just right for us to exist."
http://news.discovery.com/space/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation-2-121216.html
In order to avoid further miscommunications, I'm merely stating that there are some reasons to think certain hypotheses are PLAUSIBLE, not absolute truth, but PLAUSIBLE. And rather interesting if I might add.
Robert in post # 16:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo offense Ed, but when you say:
"At t0 (time zero) the universe was in a highly ordered state.",
were you there? Probably not and you are just taking the word of the celebrity physicists.
---
The SA discussions have nothing like those in the usenet newsgroups. You'll find it hard to offent me, Robert.
To answer your question, no I wasn't. Are you trying to claim you were? (is that a tardis behind you? 8^)
While my Physic background may be weak (only a BS), I find the concensus of lots of physicists a good place to check myself.
The comments in post #6 suggest that the Big Bang violates the second law of Thermodynamics.
So my question remains. In what specific manner does the Big Bang violate Thermodynamics, in particular the second law?
I've seen no evidence so far that BB violates this law.
Will Acoyauh2 provide some support for his claim?
I don't know whether BB violates basic laws of Thermodynamics. But please respond to my following query.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt BB, universe size is hypothesized of the size of an atom which has been increasing since BB due to cosmological expansion. Can all the sub-atomic particles constituting trillions and trillions of stars and billion of galaxies and other stellar objects ( which are in the current universe) be accommodated in such unimaginable small space? For individual atoms, Scientists speak of Pauli Exclusion Principle that two sub atomic particles say electrons can't occupy same quantum positions. Why at BB or withing a few seconds after BB, trillions of sub atomic particles occupied same quantum positions ? One can say that initially there was only energy and no matter particles. but can energy ( of any form -- e.m , strong, weak) exist in the absence of space? Basic problem with BB is the creation of space ( from where? and how?) and its continuous expansion thereof but cosmology of the day is not clear on many aspects of space and its expansion. Expansion of space has never been measured directly. Expansion of space is an indirect inference resulting from observed cosmological red shift. Even if space has been expanding ( For the time being, I agree), why expansion of space should lead to red shift which means loss of energy of light. When light is emanated from a star/galaxy and after traversing billion of light years in vacuum is caught in astronomers's telescope at earth, where the loss of energy ( implying red shift) of light goes in vacuum?
If the loss of energy goes to vacuum ( to account for red shift) why it should lead to inference of expansion of space? If without expansion, light traverse certain distance say 5 billion light years and with expansion it traverses increased distance say 8 billion light years, what is special in that increased distance of 3 billion light years that energy loss of light ( or red shift) takes place in vacuum? If energy loss had to take place in vacuum by space, this could take place in normal distance of 5 billion light years also without expansion . Some cosmologists contend that due to expansion embedded galaxies disperse away from each other and therefore energy loss takes place on the lines of Doppler effect. But in case of Doppler effect there is actual movement of material bodies in static space. In case of expansion of space resulting to cosmological red shift, cosmologists hypothesize movement of material galaxies due to creation of additional space within those galaxies.
Further to 43
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you examine it further, immediate question arises : Are material galaxies hinged to vacuum space due to some interacting bonding force in order to enable expanding space to drag material galaxies along with it? What is the Nature of that bonding force? Has that bonding force even been observed and detected in any empirical study? Scientists are silent on these queries or provide evasive answers. Unless these issues are not addressed, expansion of space shall remain under cloud.
Big Bang, Age of universe and in fact mainstream cosmology of past 80 years since e Hubble in 1929 are the off- shoot of one phenomenon namely expansion of space. Unless all the intriguing issues around expansion of space are not clarified, BB theory shall always remain under cloud
Amazing how some of these threads keep on going...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEd, let me point you to your own jokingly made epilogue: "Now at t0 - 1, it's a different question. 8^)".
Well, that is exactly my issue with the general Big Bang concept: Something out of noting is akin to those bible-bangers saying it was all created like *poof*
Personally, a 'Big Bounce' itches my brain a bit less than other theories, but as has been variously noted in this thread, anything prior to the Big Bang, or outside our detectable universe - be it in these or other dimensions - is untestable and therefore just speculation.
a) I love speculation, it's given birth to the best science we have today. Even when 99.+% of it was garbage
b) PROVE the big bang and I'll shut up. In the meantime, it's as valid as a biblebanger's delusion, with just a little bit more circumstancial evidence.
Like jtdwyer here, whom I encounter frequently and respect a lot, I may not have a PHD, but I'm no stranger to science and have a sharp and curious mind. Unlike him, I'm too lazy to delve into the math of things in a comments thread.
I agree with you that in general, bigger minds' consensus is a good starting point for most purposes. But when it doesn't hold its water, sorry, I like to go scout those other little streams and see wassup.
And yeah, annoy people a lot while I'm at it ;)
Let me qualify this bit, since some of us seem to be a bit edgy lately.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...anything prior to the Big Bang, or outside our detectable universe - be it in these or other dimensions - is so far untestable and therefore just speculation.
There =)
to Acoyauh2
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for your reply.
I'm a lot like you, but the BB just doesn't itch my brain as much as it does yours.
You may have to put me at least at the table (though not on the same side) as those Bible thumpers. A literal interpretation doesn't work but the basic principles seem to. I don't want to get into a discussion about the Bible, God and creation. I'm adding this just to show my view.
Before the BB theory arose, science maintained that the universe was essentially static. The BB theory matches the Bibical notion that existance had a beginning. I think it works.
back to normal physics discussion-
As my college chemistry professor always said: If it works, use it. The corrolary of course is, when it fails throw it out. Physics did that with the static universe model. BB is the best working model so far...
... until we get something better.
The Big Bounce theory doesn't fit because there doesn't seem to be enough mass to pull everything back together. There might be something that pulls space back together, we just haven't seen it yet. So an eventual grand contraction needed for the bounce appears to me to be at least as big an assumption as the something from nothing assumption for Big Bang.
Enjoy talking with you.
vinodkumarsehgal,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou have lots of questions. I am just making comments on brief breaks at work, so I cannot go through them all. I'll try to answer later.
Right now the redshift question. The easiest explanation (and thus likely partly wrong) is that the light is stretched over the course of the trip as the universe expands. You have a good question: where does the energy go?
I would say it is similar to the change of wavelength for light excaping a gravity well. That may help your thinking about it.
HTH.
Change in wave length of light escaping a gravity well is called gravitational red shift which is different than cosmological red shift which is interpreted to result from expansion of universe ( space). Gravitational red shift arises when light propagates against gravitational field, therefore, loss in energy of light ( or red shift). But in case of cosmological red shift, there is no force/field which may cause loss of energy of light or red shift
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe similarity of gravitional redshift and cosmological redshift has to do with space itself. No invocation of fields are necessary. One is the change in the light as it travels up the curved spacetime of the gravity well. the other is the change in the light as it travels along a space-time line that is increasing in length as it travels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou obviously are asking for more than just a novice explanation. I think you'd need the equations to figure it out at the level you want. I don't have them.
Good luck in increasing your understanding.