So we agree on that then
Unfortunately the tired light theory does not work, 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.From my post here] Photons traveling through superfluid spacetime:
This dampening effect would also happen to photons traveling through spacetime, the researchers found. Although the effect is small, high-energy photons traveling very long distances should lose a noticeable amount of energy, the researchers say.The concept of spacetime as a superfluid could provide the medium and the mechanism whereby light can lose energy traveling vast distances thereby producing redshifts and the possibility that the universe is static and not expanding at all. The ideas of the BB, a singularity, "expanding space" and the mysterious unknown 68.3% "dark energy" causing the "expansion" of the universe make less sense.
Time passes at the tautological rate of one second per second.All clocks measure movement, not time per se.
You also seem to dismiss the idea of a singularity because it leads to infinities, yet you happily talk about an infinite universe. If you can accept the one then you can accept the other.Not necessarily so. An infinite universe is not synonymous to a singularity with infinite density, gravity etc. whereby GR and QM break down, which is apparently absurd. Wrt black holes, from this article in Nature in January 2014 here] Stephen Hawking: 'There are no black holes'
Most physicists foolhardy enough to write a paper claiming that “there are no black holes" — at least not in the sense we usually imagine — would probably be dismissed as cranks. But when the call to redefine these cosmic crunchers comes from Stephen Hawking, it’s worth taking notice.And:
If Hawking is correct, there could even be no singularity at the core of the black hole. Instead, matter would be only temporarily held behind the apparent horizon, which would gradually move inward owing to the pull of the black hole, but would never quite crunch down to the centre.Bold added by me.
kkwan,
You seem to like to advocate speculative theories which are not endorsed by the cosmological community.
We need a quantum-gravity theory that marries GR with QM.
Even experts like Stephen Hawking speculate in the dark about this topic; from the Nature article you quoted from,
A full explanation of the process, the physicist admits, would require a theory that successfully merges gravity with the other fundamental forces of nature. But that is a goal that has eluded physicists for nearly a century. “The correct treatment," Hawking says, “remains a mystery."
As I said above,
All that we can say about approaching the infinity of a singularity at the heart of a Black Hole for example, is that we don’t know what happens there.
Ignorance is no place to construct a theory - although I concede that many try to do so.
With reference to the theme of this thread, which is that life seems highly unlikely and Richard Dawkins is willing to consider its arrival of Earth may have been the consequence of a seeding by an ‘Intelligent Designer’ in the form of an ETI (which in itself does not solve the problem of how that ET originated) it seems that we have two options.
The first option is the origin of the first replicating organism is an incredibly unlikely event, with odds of something like 10^140:1.
In this case the Earth is the only home of life in a sterile universe stretching out many many times further than our observable cosmological horizon until the next fecund habitat is found.
I find this concept emotionally heart-achingly lonely. “So if it’s just us… it seems like an awful waste of space”, a sad fact I would just have to accept.
Even if our corner of the Milky Way happens to be a habited zone, where life had spread from one planet to another by accident or design, even then the rest of the universe(s) is vastly larger and would be sterile.
The second option it seems is that life actually is far more likely through natural processes that we have not yet discovered and occurs spontaneously within a few hundred million years wherever a habitable environment exists.
I cannot wait to explore the sub-surface of Mars or the water beneath Europa’s icecap for extant micro-organisms.
kkwan, You seem to like to advocate speculative theories which are not endorsed by the cosmological community.The cosmological theory with the BB, a singularity and the expanding universe "endorsed by the cosmological community" has fundamental flaws and is not convincing. Cosmology, itself, is highly speculative. Consider dark fluid. From the wiki here]
In astronomy and cosmology, dark fluid is an alternative theory to both dark matter and dark energy and attempts to explain both phenomena in a single framework. Dark fluid proposes that dark matter and dark energy are not separate physical phenomena as previously thought, nor do they have separate origins, but that they are linked together and are really specific sub-effects of new extended laws of gravity at very large scales.You wrote:
Even experts like Stephen Hawking speculate in the dark about this topic; from the Nature article you quoted from,It might be a futile and impossible task to do that.A full explanation of the process, the physicist admits, would require a theory that successfully merges gravity with the other fundamental forces of nature. But that is a goal that has eluded physicists for nearly a century. “The correct treatment," Hawking says, “remains a mystery."
With reference to the theme of this thread, which is that life seems highly unlikely and Richard Dawkins is willing to consider its arrival of Earth may have been the consequence of a seeding by an 'Intelligent Designer' in the form of an ETI (which in itself does not solve the problem of how that ET originated) it seems that we have two options. The first option is the origin of the first replicating organism is an incredibly unlikely event, with odds of something like 10^140:1. In this case the Earth is the only home of life in a sterile universe stretching out many many times further than our observable cosmological horizon until the next fecund habitat is found. I find this concept emotionally heart-achingly lonely. "So if it's just us... it seems like an awful waste of space", a sad fact I would just have to accept. Even if our corner of the Milky Way happens to be a habited zone, where life had spread from one planet to another by accident or design, even then the rest of the universe(s) is vastly larger and would be sterile. The second option it seems is that life actually is far more likely through natural processes that we have not yet discovered and occurs spontaneously within a few hundred million years wherever a habitable environment exists. I cannot wait to explore the sub-surface of Mars or the water beneath Europa's icecap for extant micro-organisms.It may be much more simpler than that. From this article here] Water in star dust points to origins of life in the universe
Space weathering, which works similar to geological erosion on the Earth, produces water in the rims of tiny particles of interplanetary dust. The discovery may have implications on the origins of life and sources of water throughout the galaxy. As a byproduct of star formation, water ice is the most abundant solid material in the universe. But this new source was a surprise.And:
"The implications are potentially huge," Ishii said. "It is a particularly thrilling possibility that this influx of dust onto the surfaces of solar system bodies has acted as a continuous rainfall of little reaction vessels containing both the water and organics, key ingredients needed for the eventual origin of life."
Indeed kkwan, it is really interesting that the required conditions and chemistry seems to be available, now we have to see if that has led to the origin of life anywhere else than Earth.
The cosmological theory with the BB, a singularity and the expanding universe "endorsed by the cosmological community" has fundamental flaws and is not convincing. Cosmology, itself, is highly speculative.Yet the standard LCDM model is the best model we have. Yes it requires Inflation, Dark Matter and Dark Energy, not discovered elsewhere, but it does fit the highly detailed and precise data that we now have, such as the latest Planck satellite observations of the microwave background. You may find interesting these slides of a talk by a leading cosmologist George Efstathiou on the subject: http://www.cosmos.esa.int/documents/387566/387653/Ferrara_Dec1_16h30_Efstathiou_Cosmology.pdf Yes look for an alternative theory, I do it myself, but such a theory will also have to fit this data, otherwise it falls flat on its face, such as the Steady State Theory did, no matter how well it fits our philosophical viewpoint.
Basically dichotomous cosmology is crackpottery, anyone can say they have built time dilation into their theory but you cannot. Time passes at the tautological rate of one second per second.Ockam, is special relativity also crackpottery? You also have time dilation in special relativity. So why do you say "Time passes at the tautological rate of one second per second"? I disagree with your statement.
Basically dichotomous cosmology is crackpottery, anyone can say they have built time dilation into their theory but you cannot. Time passes at the tautological rate of one second per second.Ockam, is special relativity also crackpottery? You also have time dilation in special relativity. So why do you say "Time passes at the tautological rate of one second per second"? I disagree with your statement.Special Relativity (SR) might have been thought of as 'crackpottery' when first published, indeed many physicists at the time dismissed it, however it is logically and mathematically consistent and within its regime of application, (it does not include gravitational effects), it explained the observation that the measured speed of light (in vacuo) is constant, it has passed many and all experimental tests that have been thrown at it. General Relativity (GR) extended the theory to include gravitational fields. It is therefore part of the consensus of established science. Of course it may yet fail a test and it may require to be modified, that is the nature of science. Those who do not understand the statement "Time passes at the tautological rate of one second per second" have not thought about either the statement or the nature of time. The word 'passes' implies that we are concerned here with the experience of measuring the passing of time by a single observer (the one for whom time is passing). It is the same as saying distance is measured at 'one metre per metre'. In both SR and GR time is seen not on its own but part of a space-time continuum. Time dilation in SR and GR is the dilation of the measurement of two different observers who are either moving relative to each other (SR) or who are at different gravitational potentials within a gravitational field (GR) from one event until they meet up at another event,. In either case the 'distance' or interval traversed by a body between two events can vary by the route through space-time that the body takes. In SR that route varies because of the speed of one observer relative to the other, in GR because of the different gravitational fields they pass through. Each observer themselves measure time passing by their own clocks at 'one second per second', they could not do otherwise.
Special Relativity (SR) might have been thought of as 'crackpottery' when first published, indeed many physicists at the time dismissed it, however it is logically and mathematically consistent and within its regime of application, (it does not include gravitational effects), it explained the observation that the measured speed of light (in vacuo) is constant, it has passed many and all experimental tests that have been thrown at it.Just on a historical note: SR was not seen as crackpottery, at most it was seen as a neat but incorrect way of integrating Newtonian mechanics and the Maxwell theory of electromagnetism. Many physicists, like Lorenz, Poincaré, Fitzgerald were working on it before Einstein. But very soon SR was recognised, first by Max Planck. Another way of seeing that SR surely was not crackpottery: the author had a thorough understanding of classical mechanics and Maxwell. Crackpots always miss even the basic understanding ('I know I am right, but I have to work out the math'). Concerning the speed of light: SR did not explain it, but took it as a starting point, as a postulate.
Special Relativity (SR) might have been thought of as 'crackpottery' when first published, indeed many physicists at the time dismissed it, however it is logically and mathematically consistent and within its regime of application, (it does not include gravitational effects), it explained the observation that the measured speed of light (in vacuo) is constant, it has passed many and all experimental tests that have been thrown at it.Just on a historical note: SR was not seen as crackpottery, at most it was seen as a neat but incorrect way of integrating Newtonian mechanics and the Maxwell theory of electromagnetism. Many physicists, like Lorenz, Poincaré, Fitzgerald were working on it before Einstein. But very soon SR was recognised, first by Max Planck. Another way of seeing that SR surely was not crackpottery: the author had a thorough understanding of classical mechanics and Maxwell. Crackpots always miss even the basic understanding ('I know I am right, but I have to work out the math'). Thank you, but as a matter of fact there were some who didn't accept the principle of relativity, Philipp Lenard for example, who was a Hungarian-German physicist and winner of the Nobel prize for physics in 1905. From the 1920 Bad Nauheim Debate]
Besides the debate over these lectures, however, also a general discussion concerning the principles took place, the became nearly exclusively a confrontation between Einstein and Lenard. One simply must conclude, that Lenard doesn't grasp the meaning of Einstein's theory; therefore the opponents didn't find each other at all, the confrontation remained a sham fight and without result.
Concerning the speed of light: SR did not explain it, but took it as a starting point, as a postulate.I absolutely agree. That postulate led to a consistent theory which was concordant with the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment. Einstein though, when developing SR, was more concerned to find a way of making Maxwell's laws of electrodynamics invariant between different inertial frames of reference, the Principle of Invariant Light Speed was a concise way of expressing that invariance.