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The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Saul Perlmutter at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Brian Schmidt at the Australian National Lab and Adam Reiss at Johns Hopkins. The Royal Swedish Academy’s Olga Botner:
“In a universe which is dominated by matter, one would expect gravity eventually should make the expansion slow down. Imagine then the utter astonishment when two groups of scientists headed by this year’s Nobel laureates in 1998 discovered that the expansion was not slowing down, it was actually accelerating. By comparing the brightness of distant, far-away supernovae with the brightness of nearby supernovae, the scientists discovered that the far-away supernovae were about 25 percent too faint. They were too far away. The universe was accelerating. And so this discovery is fundamental and a milestone for cosmology. And a challenge for generations of scientists to come.”
—Steve Mirsky
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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8 Comments
Add CommentHave Nobel prizes ever been retracted before?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are still several uncertainties presumed in the analysis of type Ia supernovae luminosities. One uncertainty is the effect of metalicity on peak emission luminosity, used to precisely derive distance in the studies that concluded the uiniverse is accelerating. It is currently presumed to have no effect, but the metalicity of more distant type Ia SNe would be different from that of nearer type Ia SNe and its effect has not yet been determined. Please see: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/08/bright_supernova_one_of_the_ne.html#more
Nicely put:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"By comparing the brightness of distant, far-away supernovae with the brightness of nearby supernovae, the scientists discovered that the far-away supernovae were about 25 percent too faint. They were too far away. The universe was accelerating."
However, what is not explained is why they were considered to be too far away. Their brightness derived distance was farther away than the distance predicted by standard cosmological models based on galactic red-shift.
To adjust those models for the seemingly anomalous more distant supernovae, the parameter for a cosmological constant was supplied, and the traditional parameter used to indicate the deceleration of expansion was changed to indicate negative deceleration(!)
To correctly model the distances of nearer supernovae, there is no requirement to change those parameters, since previously established values continue to work fine.
It can be argued, then that it is the light from more distant supernovae, emitted in the more ancient universe, that indicate increased expansion.
Light from both near and far supernovae have been subjected to identical conditions of spacetime expansion for the past several billion years: the only difference between them is that the light from more distant supernovae have been exposed to the condition prevalent in the earlier universe. That more distant supernovae would be farther away than expected indicates that they were subjected to greater expansion than are nearer supernovae: the universe is decelerating, consistent with the second law of thermodynamics...
It's strange that you see the universe as expanding, even accelerating while expanding, while all the time it's contracting. You'd not believe and consider me idiotic. However, it's true. My site (anadish.com)will tell you a bit, the rest shall be soon out in a book.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery that
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe rate of expansion of the universe is increasing
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The action, when the God of Everything, compressed the
whole Universe into his palm, the scientists named ‘singular point’
And the action, when the God of Everything, opened his palm
the scientists named ‘Big Bang’
Does evolution begin on big bang level ?
At what step does consciousness begin?
Does consciousness begin on big bang level ?
What is our intellect ?
We can see this practically :
after ‘ big bang‘ all Galaxies run away from us
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What was before: egg or chicken?
Oh, I know this question is very old and does not have answer.
Therefore I will ask a simpler question:
What was before: ‘ big bang’ or vacuum?
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Dark Energy may be Vacuum
www. eurekalert. org / pub_releases/ 2007-01/ uoc-dem011607.php
I agree to the accelerating expansion of the Universe. In my book “From the inside of quarks and up to beyond the universe”, page 125, I describe an interesting, new proposal on the theoretical cause, of this acceleration of the Universe as follows:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"In the beginning, along with matter, antimatter is created. Then the matter and the antimatter, creates sets of masses of matter and sets of masses of antimatter, which are formed in, solar systems and galaxies of matter and sets of solar systems and galaxies of antimatter. Between the systems of matter and antimatter there is developed a repulsion. This repulsion is dynamically creates the accelerating expansion of the universe, -or better the acceleration of the universes and anti universes-". More details there are in my book.
Ι’am writing these few lines, to highlight the case that besides ‘dark matter’, there are many other reasons, for which, we can attribute the phenomenon, of the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. There is no, any particular reasons, we all start, to look for ‘dark matter’ or ‘dark energy’.
Nobel Prize in Physics
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI warmly applaud the accurate observatonal work of the prize winners - on supernovae. However, the Prize was awarded on the grounds of the work showing that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate but this is merely conjectue based on the prior guess that the Universe is actually expanding. It seems reasonable to expect the elimination of prior guesswork before handing out prestigious Prizes.
All the facts relied on for an expanding Universe have alternatie explanations. For example we know the redshift is not due to the Doppler effect. or we would have to be at the centre of the Universe. Problematically, the Doppler effect is the only proved redshift effect caused by motion, others are guesswork. However, a model called the cosmological redshift, has been fabricated, to make the redshift be a measure of a notional expansion. This relies on the expansion being produced by space itself stretching and pushing galaxies apart. The redshift is then said to be caused by the expanding space, stretching thr wavelength of light as it passes through it. There is no known method for either space to stretch and expand or for it to stretch light as it passes through it. This model is pure metaphysical speculation.
Secondly,notwithstanding that the cosmological redshift model is made up, it does not manage to do the job it was made up for. Back in 1929 Hubble discovered the coefficient of proportionality between the distance the light has travelled and the amount of redshift. Double the distance gives double the redshift, three times the distance gives three times the redshift and so on. However, the cosmological redshift model does not give this essential result. It gives the correct notional recessional velocity for the galaxies, but the light we rely on would not show this. Remember we are not dealing with the Doppler effect. The stretching of the light would compound as it passed through space.
I will explain this below in a follow-up Comment.
Frank Atkinson, www.tempofieldtheory.co.uk
Nobel Prize for Physics
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFollow up explanation for Previous Comment
To show this, consider four galaxies all equidistant in a straight line, ABCD. Now send out a pulse of light from A towards D, and let its wavelength start at 1 cm. Let the expansion be such that the wavelength is doubled by the time it gets to B giving a redshift of 1. When the pulse of light passes B let a second pulse be sent off from B towards D, with the same wavelength of 1 cm. Now we have the situation that when the two pulses of light arrive at C, we find A to have its wavelength stretched to 4 cm, and B to 2 cm. Finally, as the two pulses of light pass C, let a third pulse be sent out from C towards D, with the same wavelength of 1 cm. When the three pulses of light arrive at D the light from C will have the correct redshift of 1, but that from B will have a redshift of 3 and not 2 as it should: and the light from A will have a redshift of 7 instead of 3. So instead of a progression 1,2,3 we have 1,3,7,15,31,63.
To sum up, the main planks in the argument for the expansion of the Universe as presently argued, are not viable. A fundamental rethink is required as to whether there is expansion at all. I have submitted an alternative model (see Paper on the Big Bang on the open access website www.tempofieldtheory.co.uk and the Book "Time - The Hidden Dimensions Of The Missing Physics",) suggesting that the Universe is static on the large scale, by virtue of the variation in time dilation throughout the Universe, which is a fundamental property of the Tempo field model.
Frank Atkinson
On the one hand a black hole is a space in which the
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgravitational field is so powerful that nothing can escape out.
On the other hand: Hawking Radiation theorizes that
black holes do not, in fact, absorb all matter absolutely;
they give off some return matter.
Question:
How did the ‘single point‘ for ‘big bang’ was created if
the matter can escape from any strong gravitational force?
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Israel socratus
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