THE CASE AGAINST COSMOLOGY
M. J. Disney
Abstract. It is
argued that some of the recent claims for cosmology are grossly
overblown. Cosmology rests on a very small database: it suffers from
many fundamental difficulties as a science (if it is a science at
all) whilst observations of distant phenomena are difficult to make
and harder to interpret. It is suggested that cosmological
inferences should be tentatively made and sceptically received.
1. INTRODUCTION
Given statements
emanating from some cosmologists today one could be forgiven for
assuming that the solution to some of the great problems of the
subject, even ``the origin of the Universe'' lie just around the
corner. As an example of this triumphalist approach consider the
following conclusion from Hu et al. [1]
to a preview of the results they expect from spacecraft such as MAP
and PLANCK designed to map the Cosmic Background Radiations: ``. . .
we will establish the cosmological model as securely as the Standard
Model of elementary particles. We will then know as much, or even
more, about the early Universe and its contents as we do about the
fundamental constituents of matter''.
We believe the
most charitable thing that can be said of such statements is that
they are naive in the extreme and betray a complete lack of
understanding of history, of the huge difference between an
observational and an experimental science, and of the peculiar
limitations of cosmology as a scientific discipline. By building up
expectations that cannot be realised, such statements do a
disservice not only to astronomy and to particle physics but they
could ultimately do harm to the wider respect in which the whole
scientific approach is held. As such, they must not go unchallenged.
It is very
questionable whether the study of any phenomenon that is not
repeatable can call itself a science at all. It would be sad however
to abandon the whole fascinating area to the priesthood. But if we
are going to lend this unique subject any kind of scientific
respectability we have to look at all its claims with a great
circumspection and listen to its proponents with even greater
scepticism than is usually necessary. This is particularly true when
the gulf between observers and theoreticians is as wide as it
usually is here. Either side may be more inclined to accept the
claims of the other than they should. As an extra-galactic observer
addressing a mostly theoretical audience I want to emphasise the
very many caveats that should always be attached to the
observational side of this field. I do so as a friend and admirer of
George Ellis who has one of the few minds capable of bridging the
gulf.
2. THE
OBSERVATIONS WHICH BEAR ON COSMOLOGY
The observations
which bear on cosmology are, for such a grandiose subject, extremely
sparse. I count only about a dozen which probably bear - most of
them stumbled upon by accident (see
Table 1). And they are observations not controlled experiments
which therefore means that they cannot compare with the thousands of
particle physics experiments upon which the Standard Model is based.
|
Table 1. ALL THE OBSERVATIONS WHICH BEAR ON COSMOLOGY |
|
1.
|
The
dark sky background.* |
|
2.
|
Isotropy of galaxy counts.
|
|
3.
|
Magnitude-Redshift diagram for galaxies.*
|
|
4.
|
Approx equivalence between 1/H0 and  stars, elements.*
|
|
5.
|
Existence of CBR.*
|
|
6.
|
Isotropy of CBR.*
|
|
7.
|
BB
spectrum of CBR. |
|
8.
|
Measured fluctuations in CBR?
|
|
9.
|
Abundance of Helium.*
|
|
10.
|
Abundance of Deuterium.*
|
|
11.
|
Magnitude-redshift diagram for supernovae.
|
|
12.
|
Existence of walls and voids in LSS.*
|
|
13.
|
Radio
source-counts.*? |
|
|
|
*Serendipitous.
? = of questionable relevance. |
3. THE SPECIFIC
DIFFICULTIES OF COSMOLOGY
Table 2 lists some of the special difficulties which cosmology
has to face as a science. They are mostly obvious but it is worth
emphasising one or two:
|
Table 2. PARTICULAR DIFFICULTIES FOR COSMOLOGY AS A
SCIENCE |
|
1.
|
Only
one Universe. |
|
2.
|
Universe opaque for 56/60 decades since Planck era.
|
|
3.
|
Need
to extrapolate physics over huge distances. |
|
4.
|
Need
to work with what we can currently detect. [But ...]
|
|
5.
|
Local
background very bright. |
|
6.
|
Distances very hard to determine (standard candles).
|
|
7.
|
Observational Selection insidious.
|
|
8.
|
Distant galaxies hard to measure and interpret
unambiguously. |
|
9.
|
Luminosity Functions unreliable.
|
|
10.
|
Geometry, astrophysics and evolution often entangled.
|
|
11.
|
Physics of early Universe unknown (and unknowable?)
|
|
12.
|
Human
time-frame so short compared to cosmic. |
|
13.
|
Origin of inertia.
|
|
14.
|
The
singularity. |
There is only one
Universe! At a stroke this removes from our armoury all the
statistical tools that have proved indispensable for understanding
most of astronomy.
The Universe has
been opaque to electromagnetic radiation for all but 4 of the 60
decades of time which stretch between the Plank era (10-43 sec) and
today (1017 sec). Since as much interesting physics could have
occurred in each logarithmic decade, it seems foolhardy to claim
that we will ever know much about the origin of the cosmos, which is
lost too far back in the logarithmic mists of Time. Even the Large
Hadron Collider will probe the microphysics back only as far as
10-10 secs). [2].
Cosmology
requires us to extrapolate what physics we know over huge ranges in
space and time, where such extrapolations have rarely, if ever,
worked in physics before. Take gravitation for instance.. When we
extrapolate the Inverse Square Law. ( - dress it up how you will as
G.R.) from the solar system where it was established, out to
galaxies and clusters of galaxies, it simply never works. We cover
up this scandal by professing to believe in ``Dark Matter'' - for
which as much independent evidence exists as for the Emperor's New
Clothes.
Objects at
cosmologically interesting distance are exceedingly faint, small and
heavily affected by factors such as redshift-dimming and
k-corrections, so it will obviously be very difficult, if not
impossible, to extract clear information about geometry, or
evolution, or astrophysics - all of which are tangled up together.
Observational
astronomy is all about the contrast between an object and its
background [3]
- both the background of the local Universe and the background noise
in our instruments, which are never perfect. Almost all the galaxies
we know of are just marginally brighter than the terrestrial sky -
either extraordinary good fortune, or more likely a signal that far
more are hidden beneath it [4,
5,
6]. In other words we are in this, as in all other facets of
observational astronomy, hapless victims of ``Observational
Selection'' - an area in which George Ellis has done some brilliant
work [7].
The sky isn't dark. Even at the darkest site of Earth the unaided
eye can pick up 50,000 photons a second coming from an area of
``dark sky'' no larger than the full moon. Bigger telescopes are all
very well - but they pick up more unwanted foreground light, as well
as background signal. When you think that the galaxies at a redshift
z of 2 should be dimmer by (1 + z)4 ~ 100, and by another large but
uncertain factor for the k-correction [i.e. band-pass shifting], it
is more than a wonder to me that we can see anything of them at all.
Ordinary galaxies at that redshift should be hundreds of times
dimmer per unit area than our sky! It is also sobering to realise
that only one per cent of the light in the night sky comes from
beyond our Galaxy.
The tragedy of
astronomy is that most information lies in spectra, and yet you need
to collect between 100 and 1000 times more radiation to get a
spectrum than to see an image. Thus most of the faint galaxies which
may have cosmological stories to tell must remain, in spectroscopic
terms, tantalisingly out of earshot. If history is anything to go by
little good will come of the thousands of nights of big-telescope
time now being lavished on the intriguing objects first seen with
the Space Telescope, and made famous through the Hubble Deep Field.
We will probably learn more cosmology from studying the surprising
and diverse histories of star-formation that Hubble is finding among
galaxies in the Local Group [8].
In summary we
have very few observations, most of them were accidently made, and
all are subject to observational selection. It is therefore
outrageous to claim a comparison with all the carefully controlled
experiments made by particle physicists. And even if we do get a
perfect map of the Cosmic Background Radiation it will only be a map
of a moment in time. Celestial mechanics is very precise - but it
doesn't tell us how the solar system was formed.
4. THEORY AND
OBSERVATIONS
Martin Harwit [9]
has argued that we cannot have made more than ten per cent of the
crucial discoveries in Astronomy. He uses what John Barrow aptly
calls `the proof-readers argument'. If two independent readers look
at a manuscript then it is possible to estimate, by comparing their
different results, how many errors there must be in total, including
those not identified. In an analogous way two independent
astronomical channels (say optical and X-ray) can be used to examine
the Universe and a comparison of their separate key discoveries will
yield an estimate of the numbers still to be found.
In any case with
so little data to work on it shouldn't be too difficult to devise a
plausible theory to account for them. It is, however, sobering to
compare the cosmological situation with the history of other
sciences.
Take geology. Men
were living on the earth for millions of years, and quarrying rock,
digging mines and canals and puzzling over its fossils for thousands
of years, before unexpected palaeomagnetic patterns revealed for
certain the key idea of Continental Drift.
In stellar
physics two thousand years elapsed between Hipparcos's speculations
and Bessel's first measurement of a stellar distance. Seventy years
later the statistical patterns in the H-R diagram led to our
understanding of stellar structure.
However the
closest comparison comes from my own field of galaxy astronomy which
is, as an observational science, almost exactly contemporary with
cosmology. Although we now have good spectra and images of thousands
of galaxies the list of fundamental things we don't know about them
(Table
3) is far more striking that the list of things we do.
|
Table 3. WHAT WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT GALAXIES |
|
1.
|
How
our knowledge is warped by Selection Effects.
|
|
2.
|
What
they are mostly made of. (Dark Matter?) |
|
3.
|
How
they formed - and when. |
|
4.
|
How
much internal extinction they suffer from. |
|
5.
|
What
controls their global star-formation rates. |
|
6.
|
What
parts their nuclei and halos play. |
|
7.
|
If
there are genuine correlations among their global
properties. |
|
8.
|
How
they keep their gas/star balances. |
Of course these
are only arguments by analogy. The optimistic cosmologist can always
counter argue [I don't know how] that the Universe in the large is a
great deal simpler than its constituent parts.
5. THE
COSMOLOGIST'S CREDO
The cosmologist,
who would also be a scientist, must surely subscribe to at least the
following assumptions:
``Speculations
are not made which cannot, at least in principle, be compared with
observational or experimental data, for tests'' [the NON-THEOLOGICAL
assumption].
``The portion of
the Universe susceptible to observation is representative of the
cosmos as a whole''. [The `GOOD LUCK' assumption].
``The Universe
was constructed using a significantly lower number of free
parameters than the number of clean and independent observations we
can make of it''. [The `SIMPLICITY' assumption].
``The Laws of
Physics which have significantly controlled the Universe since the
beginning are, or can be, known to us from considerations outside
cosmology itself i.e. we can somehow know the laws which operated
during the 56/60 electromagnetically opaque decades''. [The `NON-CIRCULARITY'
assumption].
Finally the
really wishful cosmologist who believes the final answers are just
around the corner must confess to the following extra creed:
``We live in the
first human epoch which possesses the technical means to tease out
the crucial observations''. (As opposed to Hipparcos and parallax,
Helmholz and the age of the Earth, Wegener and palaeomagnetic drift)
[The `FORTUNATE EPOCH' assumption.]
I can see very
little evidence to support any of the last 4 assumptions while it is
dismaying to find that some cosmologists, who would like to think of
themselves as scientific, are quite willing to abrogate the first.
6. THE
PATHOLOGIES OF COSMOLOGY
Cosmology must be
the slowest moving branch of science. The number of practitioners
per relevant observation is ridiculous. Consequently the same old
things have to be said by the same old people (and by new ones) over
and over and over again. For instance ``Cold Dark Matter'' now
sounds to me like a religious liturgy which its adherents chant like
a mantra in the mindless hope that it will spring into existence.
Much of cosmology is unhealthily self-referencing and it seems to an
outsider like myself that cosmological fashions and reputations are
made more by acclamation than by genuine scientific debate.
There is a
serious problem with the cost of astronomical spacecraft. An
instrument capable of cosmologically interesting observations may
cost half a billion dollars or more. There is therefore an insidious
temptation to overclaim what they will see [1].
This, however, is a dangerous game which can blow up in your face,
as proponents of the Supercollider were to find out.
There is
something beguiling and yet fallacious about working on ``the
faintest objects ever observed'' even though, by definition, they
contain ``the least information ever detected''. During my working
life a major fraction of the prime time on all large telescopes has
been devoted to the study of objects right at the horizon, with, or
so it seems to me, very little result. To be rude about it,
statistical studies of faint objects can keep a career going for
ages without the need for a single original thought - or indeed a
genuinely clear result. The jam is always just around the next
corner.
As particle
physics has become paralyzed by its escalating cost many particle
theorists have `moved over' into cosmology, wishfully thinking of
the Universe as `The great Accelerator in the Sky'. Alas they are
mostly not equipped with the astronomical background to appreciate
how `soft' an observational, as opposed to an experimental science,
has to be. But they have only to look at the history of astronomy
and at some of the howlers we have made (Table
4) to find out.
|
Table 4. SOME HISTORICAL MISTAKES IN COSMOLOGY |
|
1.
|
`Early'
cosmologies - e.g. Genesis, Hindu, . . . |
|
2.
|
Many
unsound explanations for dark sky (up to 1960).
|
|
3.
|
Assumption of a static Universe.
|
|
4.
|
Original expansion claim based on unsound statistics (Hubble).
|
|
5.
|
H0
wrong by factor ~ 10 for 25 years. |
|
6.
|
Universe measured to be younger than stars.
|
|
7.
|
CBR
not recognised for 25 years [McKellar 1942, Gamov . . .
|
|
8.
|
Radio-source counts misinterpreted due to use of
fallacious statistics. |
|
9.
|
Mass
of neutrinos forgotten/ignored for 40 years.
|
|
10.
|
Sandage's ``search for 2 numbers'' forgot evolution.
|
|
11.
|
Horizon/flatness problems virtually ignored before a
possible solution appeared. |
Despite our
intuitions very many Inverse Problems (and astronomy is very largely
an Inverse Problem) are not well posed. [10].
For example when the HST was found to be spherically aberrated half
the astronomical community claimed that the images could be restored
by mathematical `deconvolution'. But they could not be - because the
problem is ill posed; the highest resolution information will be
swamped by the highest frequency noise during the inversion - it is
a fundamental property of numerical differentiation. Only very high
signal-to-noise data (a luxury astronomers rarely enjoy) can be
deconvolved successfully. Likewise, I suspect that the multiparticle
simulations beloved of certain numerical cosmologists are extremely
ill-posed. They start off with a whole lot of CDM `dots', the dots
apparently form filaments under the force of gravity - as they are
bound to do according to Zeldovich's simple back-of-the-envelope
analysis, and we are supposed to admire the result. What result?
That to me is the question. Presumably we are supposed to compare
the dots with real structures and infer some properties of the
physical Universe. In my opinion it is nothing more than a seductive
but futile computer game. What about the gas-dynamics, the initial
conditions, the star-formation physics, evolution, dust, biasing, a
proper correlation statistic, the feedback between radiation and
matter . . . ? Without a good stab at all these effects `dotty
cosmology' is no more relevant to real cosmology than the computer
game `Life' is to evolutionary biology.
However, the most
unhealthy aspect of cosmology is its unspoken parallel with
religion. Both deal with big but probably unanswerable questions.
The rapt audience, the media exposure, the big book-sale, tempt
priests and rogues, as well as the gullible, like no other subject
in science. For that reason alone other scientists simply must treat
the pretensions of cosmology, and of professional cosmologists, with
heightened scepticism, as I am attempting to do here.
7. COSMOLOGY IN
PERSPECTIVE
Of course we
would all love to know of the fate of the Universe, just as we'd
love to know if God exists. If we expect science to provide the
answers though, we may have to be very patient - and literally wait
for eternity. Alas professional cosmologists cannot afford to wait
that long. For that reason the word `cosmologist' should be expunged
from the scientific dictionary and returned to the priesthood where
it properly belongs.
I'm not
suggesting that cosmology itself should be abandoned. Mostly by
accident it has made some fascinating, if faltering progress over
the centuries. And if we are patient and build our instruments to
explore the Universe in all the crevices of parameter space, new
clues will surely come to hand, as they have in the past, largely by
accident. But we should not spend too many of our astronomical
resources in trying to answer grandiose questions which may, in all
probability, be unanswerable. For instance we must not build the
Next Generation Space Telescope as if it was solely a cosmological
machine. We should only do that if we are confident of converging on
``the truth''. If we build it to look through many windows we may
yet find the surprising clues which lead us off on a new path along
the way.
Above all we must
not overclaim for this fascinating subject which, it can be argued,
is not a proper science at all. Rutherford for instance said ``Don't
let me hear anyone use the word `Universe' in my department''.
Shouldn't we scientists be saying something like this to the general
public:
``It is not
likely that we primates gazing through bits of glass for a century
or two will dissemble the architecture and history of infinity. But
if we don't try we won't get anywhere. Therefore we professionals do
the best we can to fit the odd clues we have into some kind of
plausible story. That is how science works, and that is the spirit
in which our cosmological speculations should be treated. Don't be
impressed by our complex machines or our arcane mathematics. They
have been used to build plausible cosmic stories before - which we
had to discard afterwards in the face of improving evidence. The
likelihood must be that such revisions will have to occur again and
again and again.''
I apologise for
such a highly opinionated attack, but it does appear to me that the
pendulum has swung much too far the other way. Surely the `burden of
proof' ought to rest squarely on the proponents of what will always
be a fascinating but suspect subject.
REFERENCES
Hu, W., Sugiyama, N. And Silk, J.,
1997, Nature, 386, 37.
Rees, M., 1995,
Perspectives in Astrophysics Cosmology, CUP, 109.
Condon, J.,
1998, IAU Symposium 179, (Kluwer), p19.
Disney, M. J.,
1976, Nature, 263, 573.
Impey, C. And
Bothun, G., 1998, Ann. Revs. Astron. Astrophys.
Disney, M. J.,
1998, IAU Colloquium 171, (Kluwer), p11.
Ellis, F. G. R.,
Perry, J. J., And Sievers, A. W.,
1984, AJ, 89, 1124
Mateo, M. G.,
1998, Ann. Revs. Astron. Astrophys., 36, p435
Harwit, M.,
1981, Cosmic Discovery, Harvester Press UK, p231.
Craig, I. and Brown, J.,
1986, Inverse Problems in Astronomy
(Adam Hilger; Bristol)
Big and Little Science - What Science really is
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2010/arch10/100413science.htm
Apr 13, 2010
Professor Irving Wolfe
What science produces is neither universally true nor real, but is
created by the observer and is relative to his predispositions and
equipment. As a result, it is not complete but selected, not
objective but subjective, and not unique but partial.
This produces an
observer-created reality, says physicist Roger Jones, in which "the
observer and observed ... cannot be broken down into independent
components" because "the observer has an uncontrollable and
non-removable effect on what is observed."
The result, according to physicist Arthur March, is that "what is
perceived is....the effects brought to light by this procedure,"
effects which "are created by this process." This means that the
scientist each time he observes creates something new, for, as
physicist John Wheeler says, "this is a participatory universe."
The scientific observation is therefore less a picture of reality
than a sort of mirror in which the observer sees himself, which
makes the physical world a product of human consciousness. To
physicist Fred Wolf, when we look at the universe "We are looking at
ourselves," and to Garry Zukav "we cannot eliminate ourselves from
the picture....physics is the study of the structure of
consciousness."
"We can only see nature blurred by the clouds of dust we ourselves
make," says physicist Sir James Jeans, for whom for instance a
rainbow is not an independent object up in the sky but a subjective
creation in the observer's mind: "Each man's rainbow is a selection
from his own eyes ... from an objective reality which is not a
rainbow at all."
The creation of scientific data is therefore caused mainly by two
factors. The first is the equipment used, which influences how the
data is created. As John Wheeler says, "When we change the observing
equipment...We have...A phenomenon that is new," and second, by the
pre-existent mental constructs of the observer, which influence how
the data is interpreted. That is why Jeans says that the attributes
we give to physical objects are "mere articles of clothing...draped
over the mathematical symbols; they did not belong to the world of
reality."
To Einstein "Time and space are modes by which we think and not
conditions in which we live." Scientific theory is therefore neither
absolute nor correct, but a compromise which "shows us something
about reality in the only way we can get at reality."
Similarly, David Bohm speaks of energy streaming from both the
observer and the observed. "The phenomena are the result of the
intersection...from the same reality," but it "has no clear meaning"
because what is unambiguous is misleading and only "the ambiguous is
the reality." These specialists insist that in science the observer
is omnipresent, which led physicist and astronomer Arthur Eddington
to the astonishing assertion that, in science, "the mind has by its
selective power fitted the processes of Nature into...a pattern
largely of its own choosing; and in the discovery of this system of
law the mind may be regarded as regaining from Nature that which the
mind has put into Nature."
Proof is therefore circular in science, with events being considered
real only if they correspond to what we already believe. To Jeans
the laws of science "are a description, not of nature, but of the
human questionings of nature," and they "tell us nothing about
nature, but only something about our own mental processes."
Similarly, physicist Heinz Pagels asks, "Are theories 'out there'?"
and answers "I don't think so. Theories are inventions," while
physicist Werner Heisenberg puts it much more simply: "Science is
made by men."
In addition, scientific language, whether mathematical or lexical,
suffers from the same defects, it is not real but only a "symbolic
means of representing the world," "a dangerous instrument to use,"
"a symbol definable only in terms of other symbols." Opinions about
reality therefore exist only in the scientist's mind and "need not,"
in Jean's words, "resemble the objects in which they originate," and
therefore "it is no longer objective nature itself but nature in
relation to the human observer that becomes the material studied by
physics."
On top of that, the scientific report is also a fabrication, for it
does not describe what happened but what should have happened and
makes no reference to feelings or trial and error. To analysts Broad
and Wade the "scientific paper is as stylized as a sonnet" and its
framework "is a fiction designed to perpetuate a myth." It is also
socially conditioned, riddled with personality and culturally
relative, which is why Schlegel says that "science is altogether a
human activity," while Karl Popper adds that in science "the
authority of truth is the authority of society."
All the steps in the process called science are colored by the human
touch.
These insights led Einstein to the belief that, with the exception
of the measurement of the speed of light in a vacuum, every
observation is inescapably conditioned by the observer's frame of
reference. It led Niels Bohr to his principle of complementarity, (that
no single observation can contain all the possible descriptions of a
phenomenon), and it led Werner Heisenberg to his uncertainty
relation, which states that not all the properties of a subatomic
object can be fully investigated by one observation at the same
time.
To these men scientific knowledge is severely limited or created and
subjective, which led Eddington to doubt the reality which science
creates. To him, what he calls the "external world" is a human
artifact, a structure created as "an answer to a particular
problem," and "We refuse to contemplate the awful contingency that
the external world, after all our care in arriving at it, might be
disqualified by failing to exist."
For these reasons both David Bohm and Niels Bohr see the creation of
science as similar to the creation of poetry, and Roger Jones
insists that, in science, "whatever it is that we are describing,
the human mind cannot be parted from it."
What these men are saying is that, surprisingly, human involvement
is the most influential tool of science and we can therefore never
know what the world is like in itself apart from us as observers. "Physics,"
says Eddington, "is a world contemplated from within...What the
world might be deemed like if probed in some supernatural manner by
appliances not furnished by itself we do not profess to know." What
is left for science, therefore, is to talk about what it sees. That
is all that science is.
Einstein believed that in today's science "there is no ultimate
theory, no...ultimate fact about the stuff the world is made of,"
there is only talk, which is why Einstein said that "physical
concepts are free creations of the human mind." This was forcefully
reiterated by Harvard astrophysicist Bruce Gregory, who said that in
science "What is real is what we regularly talk about" and therefore
"When we create a new way of talking about the world, we naturally
create a new world."
Physics is a conversation about nature, says Gregory, or, as Bohr
put it, "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find
out how nature is. Physics concerns only what we can say about
nature." I close therefore with Schlegel's provocative statement
that "The natural world is not so much a fixed structure, waiting to
be symbolically reproduced in our science, as it is a complex source
of experience which can be described in various and alternative ways."
That is the best that the scientific investigation of nature can
achieve. It can get no closer to reality than that because in
science, to use Bohm's felicitous phrase, "the observer is the
observed." Science can yield accurate phenomenological data of the
act of observation, but has no tools with which to perceive the
ultimate reality that underlies the phenomena, a reality of which,
to quote French physicist Bernard d'Espagnat, science can get only "fleeting
reflections."
As physicist Fred Wolf put it, "the whole universe comes into
existence whenever we observe it" and therefore "we are the artists
in the game of the universe." More than that, the universes which we
create depend not only upon our choices of observation but also upon
the order in which we carry them out, and it is therefore our
choices and our sequence of analysis which "create the alternative
possibilities as realities."
To Wolf, as a result, scientific "reality is a matter of choice" and
"the real is mainly determined by thought...The world we live in
depends on the pictures of that world we paint in our minds" and how
we paint it is determined by desire.
As Heinz Pagels puts it, "Human intention influences the structure
of the physical world," which is not a picture of the real, but a
creation deriving from our interactions with it.
As a consequence, fundamental matter becomes to us a fluid, varying,
imprecise, uncertain and unmeasurable realm and we cannot discover
if there is anything more graspable beneath. That is the only kind
of knowledge about the fundamental universe available to us with our
present methods, and our ultimate knowledge of any branch of science
turns out to be equally imprecise and uncertain. In all of its
fields we have derived many partial subjective truths but no
fundamental ones, nor is there the prospect of any. There is nothing
but ignorance.
May 19, 2010
Few theories qualify for Nobel laureate Niels Bohr's famous question
than the current Big Bang Theory of the origin of the Universe: "We
are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides
us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."
There is a growing body of data and theory which question whether
the Universe may have begun with a Big Bang 13.75 billion years ago.
Several leading cosmologists, such as Sean Carroll of CalTech and
Neil Turok of Cambridge University challenge the prevailing model of
a "Big Bang" and believe that in the future we will only look back
in wonder at how anyone could have believed in a creation event
which was refuted by so much evidence.
The origin of the Big Bang, that is, the state of "existence" which
resulted in a Big Bang, is a mathematically obscure state - a
"singularity" of zero volume that contained infinite density and
infinite energy. Why this singularity existed, how it originated,
and why it exploded, has led many scientists to question and
challenge the very foundations of the Big Bang theory.
It has been pointed out that an accelerated expansion limited to the
most distant regions of the known universe, is incompatible with an
explosive origin, but instead is indicative of an attractive force
-a "universe-in-mass" black hole whose super-gravity is effecting
red shifts and illumination- creating the illusion of a universe
which is accelerating as it speeds away, when instead the stars
closest to the hole are speeding faster toward their doom. Other
scientists observe that the interpretation of red shifts as
supporting a Big Bang, is also flawed and lacking validity. Some
experts believe that there is little evidence to support the belief
that red shifts are accurate measures of distance or time; that they
are so variable and effected by so many factors that estimates of
age, time, and distance can vary by up to 3 billion years following
repeated measurements, over the just a few years, of the same star.
Although the "Big Bang" is often presented as if it is proven fact,
there is a wealth of data, including recent revelations of the
several space probes and findings in fundamental physics, which
possibly tell a different story.
One of the first problems are found in the Large - Scale Structures
in the Universe. In recent years, there have been a number of very
serious challenges to the current theory of cosmic evolution and the
belief the universe began just 13.7 billion years ago. The existence
of these "Superclusters", "Great Walls" and "Great Attractors" could
have only come to be organized and situated in their present
locations and to have achieved their current size, in a universe
which is at least 80 billion to 250 billion years in age. The
largest superclusters, for example, the "Coma", extend up to 100
Mpc!
In 1986, Brent Tully of the University of Hawaii reported detecting
superclusters of galaxies 300 million light years (mly) long and 100
mly thick - stretching out about 300 mly across. At the speeds at
which galaxies are supposed to be moving, it would require 80
billlion years to create such a huge complex of galaxies.
In 1989, a group lead by John Huchra and Margaret J. Geller at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered "The Great
Wall"- a series of galaxies, lined up and creating a "wall" of
galaxies 500 million light years (mly) long, 200 mly wide, and 15
mly thick. This superstructure would have required at least 100
billion years to form.
A
team of the British, American, and Hungarian astronomers have
reported even larger structures. As per their findings, the universe
is crossed by at least 13 'Great Walls', apparent rivers of galaxies
100Mpc long in the surveyed domain of 7 billion light years. They
found galaxies clustered into bands spaced about 600 millon light
years apart. The pattern of these clusters stretches across about
one-fourth of the diameter of the universe, or about seven billion
light years. This huge shell and void pattern would have required
nearly 150 billion years to form, based on their speed of movement,
if produced by the standard Big Bang cosmology.
The "Sloan Great Wall" of galaxies, as detected by the Sloan Digital
Survey, has earned the distinction of being the largest observed
structure in the Universe. It is 1.36 billion light years long and
80% longer than the Great Wall discovered by Geller and Huchra. It
runs roughly from the head of Hydra to the feet of Virgo. It would
have taken at least 250 billion years to form.
Then there is the problem of gravity. "Hubble length" Universe,
which consists of those galaxies and stars which can be observed by
current technology, appears, therefore, to be organized as titanic
walls and clusters of galaxies separated by a collection of giant
bubble-like voids. The Great Walls are far too large and massive to
have been formed by the mutual gravitational attraction of its
member galaxies alone.
Based on the cosmological principle, which is one of the
cornerstones of the Big Bang model, cosmologists predicted the
distribution of matter to be homogeneous throughout the universe,
implying thereby that the distribution of the galaxies would be
essentially uniform. There would be no large scale clusters of
galaxies or great voids in space. Instead, contrary to the "Big
Bang" universe, we exist in a very "lumpy" cosmos.
Many of the world's leading physicists believe we are entering a
"golden age" of cosmological discoveries. Astronomers working on the
WMAP mission stunned the scientific community with their
announcement that the first generation stars in the universe were
surprisingly born just after 200 million years of the Big Bang birth
of the cosmos. The age of the universe has been steadily pushed
backwards in time, from 2 billion year to 8 billion after it was
determined the Earth was 4.6 billion years in age, and now the
estimates are 13.75 billion years. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST),
successor to the HST with ten times the light-gathering power due to
be launched in 2014, may well detect ever more distant galaxies.
Likewise, the ultra-high resolution radio telescopes such as Atacama
Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile which is to become
operational in 2012, will be peering still deeper into the universe,
and probably pushing the hypothetical Big Bang further backward in
time as ever more distant galaxies are detected.
Casey Kazan via
http://www.Cosmology.com
Image credit:
stellefilanti's Flickr photostream
Sources:
American Astronomical Society (2010). Jan. 6, 2010, at the 215th
meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.
Hollow Planet Seismology Vs
Solid Earth Seismology
http://www.hollowplanets.com/journal/Seismic01.asp
By Jan Lamprecht
WWW.HollowPlanets.com
Lesson #1:
The Earth is NOT a ball of molten lava.
The first question everyone asks me when they hear of the Hollow Planet idea
is: "Where does lava come from then?" The (completely FALSE)
impression schools have created in everyone's minds is that the Earth is
this red-hot ball of lava. They then imagine that lava from volcanoes comes
from the centre of the Earth. Ask any geologist or seismologist if this is
true and you will discover they disagree. Standard geology and seismology
texts tell a different story. Scientists know that most lava is slightly
radioactive and they believe it is produced either by decaying radium
(decayed uranium) or through stresses in the crust. Lava is created by heat
generated within the crust of the Earth. The crust is said to be no more
than 20 miles thick, although to be honest nobody has ever actually
penetrated the crust so we really do not know what (if anything different)
lies beneath it. Scientists will tell you that lava is a crustal phenomenon
and all lava comes from no deeper than 20 miles down.
If the Earth were an "ocean of molten lava" then it would actually be
subject to tidal pressures and the continents would be broken to pieces as
the earth rotated. Scientists say the Earth is actually composed of solid
rock for the most part. As you go deeper, the pressures are supposed to be
so great that the rock actually flows from extreme pressure. (As you will
see, even this may not be really true). But nowhere in modern geology or
seismology will you see them saying the Earth is a ball of molten lava.
In fact, the final proof comes from seismology itself. When an earthquake
occurs, seismic waves travel out in all directions throughout all the earth.
There are two types of seismic waves: P and S. Based on this, scientists
know that all of the earth is actually quite RIGID and composed only of
rock. The only partial exception is the Outer core. Take a look the seismic
diagram below. If the earth were truly molten, then seismic waves would be
considerably dampened down. So the fact that seismic waves can travel
through and around the earth shows that it is mostly completely rigid and
solid.
In the above seismic diagram (from a text book on seismology), D=Mantle,
E=Outer core, G=Inner core.
Lesson #2: Traditional Hollow Earth ideas fail the "seismology
test". Let me show you why scientists simply laugh at the idea of a
Hollow Planet. Keep in mind that all Hollow Earthers have, for more than a
century, been saying that the Earth's crust is 800-1000 miles thick. Note in
the above diagram, that seismic waves travel from the source of an
earthquake (on the left) through the Earth at various angles and therefore
reach the other side (this is not true of all seismic waves, but of the main
ones, referred to as "P" waves). If you were to propose that a planet only
has a crust of 1,000 miles or less, then this is why a scientist would laugh
at you. See the image below.
In the above diagram you can see the seismic ray paths (red lines) moving
away from an earthquake source. Note how the huge cavity in this
"traditional" hollow earth model would block out all the "P" waves from
reaching the other side of the Earth. So clearly, this type of approach does
not fit the known scientific facts and so we must discard it.
Lesson #3: Is there any Hollow Earth seismic model which allows
waves to go around the Earth? The obvious problem posed by the theory is
that seismic waves actually reach right across to the other side of the
Earth. Scientists are therefore quite confident that the P waves must have
passed through the core of the Earth and this tells them that there cannot
be a cavity.
When I did my feasibility study (which is what my book is), I looked at
the problem from every conceivable angle to see if there was any Hollow
Earth model which made seismic sense. I found only one - I repeat - only
one, which has any merits. All other Hollow Earth seismic models are
failures. Take a look at it below.
In the above model, I simply used the Earth's structure as scientists define
it now. I replaced the Outer core with a cavity (I'll explain why later -
because there is a sound reason for it). But the thing I changed was the
structure of the Mantle. I wondered what would happen if density within a
sphere did not increase uniformly as has been assumed. What if density
actually DECREASES from a certain point onwards? You will notice
all solid-earth seismology shows ray paths curving in a "U" back to the
surface of the Earth. That is because density and pressure increases as you
go deeper. But if, for some reason, density were to suddenly decrease,
then the waves would curve in the opposite direction! I realised this,
and you can see what then happens. In the middle of the Mantle, where
density suddenly decreases, it causes seismic waves to travel around the
cavity - right to the other side of the Earth!
You would be excused for believing that the waves might have passed
through the core of the Earth when in fact nothing of the kind happened.
Lesson #4: The Mystery of the "Shadow Zone." The next problem
in global seismology is explaining the mysterious "Shadow Zone". There is a
lack of P waves between 103o-144o from the epicentre
of a quake. Take a look at the problem as seen from a university-level
text-book on seismology.
Note how the P waves strike the Outer core and scientists believe the
refraction caused by this sudden change in density can explain the
shadow. But notice, in this university-level text book how they are
befuddled because there are still some waves which reach the shadow zone
(dotted line). They are at a complete loss to explain this. Now
let me explain to you how perfectly my Hollow Earth model solves this
problem. Take a look at the image below.
After changing some parameters in my Hollow Planet seismic model, I have a
"Shadow Zone" which matches the facts exactly! I made the cavity
smaller, and I moved the "point of maximum density" (the dark circle in the
Mantle) somewhat lower. Note: The Green area near the surface is the "Shadow
Zone". Now look at the amazing thing that happens. We have P waves behaving
as normal right up to 103o. Then suddenly there are very few of
them inside the Shadow Zone and then after the Shadow Zone we are a greater
and greater number of ray paths eventually converging on the other side of
the Earth! This is exactly consistent with the known facts of global
seismology!
Sometimes small things can make a huge difference. It is obvious from the
Hollow Planet diagram why there would be a Shadow Zone. This is caused by
the gradual change from "increasing density" to "decreasing density." This
causes the waves to "split" - some to go down while others go up. So there
has to then be an area on the surface which receives less seismic waves than
normal - hence the "Shadow Zone." A really crucial point is that the "Shadow
Zone" is not completely devoid of waves. In the Hollow Planet model you can
see why - it makes perfect sense. In the solid earth model you can see they
have to stretch their imaginations (dotted lines) in order to try to find
some explanation. In their diagram they believe the Shadow is cased by sharp
refraction - but clearly that explanation does not quite fit the facts.
Lesson #5: Proving, that the Outer and Inner cores - do not exist
at all. You have been wondering why I removed the Outer Core altogether
from my Hollow Planet seismic model. The answer is simple. There are two
kinds of seismic waves - P waves - which are much like sound waves. They are
pressure waves caused by a direct "push" through the matter. But then there
are S waves - shear waves - which are like taking a piece of hose-pipe and
moving it up and down rapidly. P waves can travel through everything except
a vaccuum (although if they travelled through air they would be considerably
weaker than when they travelled through rock or a liquid). S waves
however, can only be transmitted through rigid materials - like rock. It
has long been known to scientists that unlike P waves which can travel
around the world - S waves are in fact "blocked" by something. They named
this "something" the Outer core. They decided the Outer core had to be
non-rigid. If the Outer core were a type of "liquid" then P waves could pass
through it, but S waves could not. Hence they "invented" the Outer core.
Very early on, when I became interested in the Hollow Earth idea, I realised
this property of the Outer core, and I wondered if the Outer core was really
a liquid, or if it was, in reality a cavity. My big problem however was
figuring out how P waves behaved.
Now let me show you that the Outer core does not exist at all, while the
Inner core is merely the part of the Earth in the immediate vicinity of the
cavity!
Here we have a standard solid-Earth seismic model.
The waves we are interested in are those which passed throuh the core - the
PKP and PKIKP waves. When one takes a look at the data showing the speed
with which seismic waves travel, one discovers an interesting thing:
Waves which pass through the core (those which are supposed to be going in a
straight line) actually slow down! What makes this even more curious is that
P waves are supposed to speed up when they pass through dense material. And
there is no place on this planet which is as dense as the Inner core! So
why do P waves then slow down? According to the formula for the transmission
of sound/pressure waves - speed is affected by two factors: (a) Density (b)
Elasticity. This gives scientists a way of getting out of the problem by
saying: "If the Density has increased, but the wave has slowed down, it must
THEREFORE mean that the Elasticity increased."
Let us return to my Hollow Planet seismic model.
Take a look at the ray paths of the waves which reached the other side of
the Earth, beyond the Shadow Zones. Look at the paths they travelled. (a)
They did not travel through the core - they took a longer path around the
cavity/core. (b) They were the waves which travelled near the cavity - hence
near the area of lowest density! Both those factors would cause the
waves to take a longer time to travel to the other side of the Earth, hence,
giving the appearance that they slowed down, while apparently travelling in
a more-or-less straight line!! There, once more, we find a perfect match
between my Hollow Planets Seismic model and what we know about global
seismology. As you can see, this explanation accounts for everything
observed and yet there is no need for either an Outer or Inner core.
Lesson #6: Amazing Seismic Speed Revelations - proving the Earth
is homogenous. Seismologists often produce diagrams such as the one
below which show the speed of seismic waves inside the Earth at various
depths.
You will notice, at various depths, such as at the 5,000 Km level, the speed
of waves changing very sharply - either speeding up or slowing down.
Scientists look at these sharp changes in speed and then state that this is
due to sharp changes in density. They use this to "prove" that the Mantle is
composed of a different type of material to the Outer core and so forth. You
have seen the Hollow Planets seismic model and how radically a seismic ray's
path may differ from the solid Earth model. Supposing the Earth really is
hollow, it would then follow that the paths of waves differ in reality from
what scientific theory supposes. That being the case, scientists may suppose
a certain ray speeds up or slows down when in fact it does nothing of the
kind. If they knew the right path (like the rays going through the core for
example), then it might turn out that such rapid speed changes never
actually occur.
However, since scientists are obsessed with the need to have a model which
matches the 6 trillion tons needed (according to their gravity experiments),
they need to find a way of "packing lots of matter into the Earth". So they
are looking for evidence of changes in density. I'm sure that when they find
they have to account for certain behaviour by postulating such instantaneous
increases/decreases in speed that it makes them confident they are on the
right track. But the opposite may be true. It is entirely possible that if
one knew the exact paths of the rays that one would find the speed of
seismic waves would not vary that much.
This is a most important point. It would mean that my Hollow Planet
seismic model is internally consistent. In other words, it postulates that
the Earth is homogenous, and a resultant analysis of seismic wave speeds
along the paths postulated should then prove that indeed the Earth is
homogenous. This would be a further proof that my model is the right one and
not the solid earth model.
Lesson #7: Deep Quakes may disprove the Solid Earth model.
According to scientists, pressure increases with depth. According to their
calculations the pressure is so great that between 70-150 Km down, all rock
will begin to flow. Below 150 Km there is no known material which will not
flow. Therefore, according to scientists, there can be no earthquakes
with epicentres deeper than 150 Km - because it is IMPOSSIBLE!
But there are! Tens of thousands of Earthquakes have epicentres deeper than
150 Km. The histogram below shows some curious things.
It shows that earthquakes occur right up to a depth of 300 Km down. The
picture is somewhat consistent with science's expectations because there are
less quakes with depth (though they do not stop at 150 Km as expected). Then
a most curious thing happens, they increase in number up to a depth of 700
Km where they end. Scientists try to explain these quakes by invoking
various possible strange properties of matter. Although each theory advanced
so far has had problems with it.
What no scientist on Earth is willing to accept is that maybe gravity does
not behave the way they believe it does! That histogram may be the proof
that gravity does not behave as is expected at depth. Why can't scientists
look at that histogram and see it for what it might be telling us? That
histogram may be "stating" quite clearly that the Earth does not have those
pressures inside and that it remains relatively cool down to incredible
depths? Maybe that diagram is "telling us" that gravity does not behave at
depths the way we are expecting. If that is so, then everything we think we
know about the mass of the Earth may be wrong.
Note, gravity is a very weak force and even a bit of static electricity
could produce an attraction far in excess of anything gravity could produce
- but with a fraction of the mass. If that is the case, you don't need to
worry about the Earth having to have a mass of 6 trillion tons. It may weigh
considerably less.
As final note, it may be that there are quakes deeper than 700 Km but they
are so far away, and maybe the effects of gravity are so weak that they do
not have enough force for us to detect them. Let me point out that
seismologists have indeed speculated about the possible existence of "Silent
Earthquakes" which are remain undetected by our equipment.
Occam's Razor & the Hollow Planets model: When in doubt, the
simplest model is probably right. There is "rule" in science known as
Occam's razor. Occam's Razor is a little piece of logic which states: When
choosing between two or more theories it is most likely that the simplest
explanation is the correct one. You have now seen my simple "sandwich"
Hollow Planet model, which assumes the Earth is largely homogenous in
composition, and you have seen how this simple model can match and even
better the achievements of the more complex and unwieldy solid-Earth model.
Does this idea of mine not satisfy Occam's Razor much more than the
solid-Earth theory does?
I received an e-mail one day from someone studying at an American
university. He said to me that he had never met such a closed-minded group
of people as the Professors at Universities! Well, I would tend to agree
with him. My book was published in July 1999. I sent copies to universities
and I placed my book on the desks of university lecturers and Professors.
Not one of them spent so much as 10 minutes looking at my book. After
leaving my book there for weeks I eventually just gave up. Now I don't
bother trying to win academics over.
My book is subtitled "A Feasibility study of possible Hollow Worlds" - and
that is what it was. I wrote it because I was certain I could actually
contribute something, and I truly hoped some academics or scientists would
take an honest look at it. I thought if anyone would appreciate some
original lateral thinking, it would be them! How wrong I was! The seismic
diagram was the most important thing in it. I wanted scientists to compare
my theoretical model against theirs and to match the seismic data to it. I
was convinced it was superior to the complex solid earth model. It seemed to
me to be a similar situation to the many concentric orbits which were used
to explain the orbits of planets until it was discovered that orbits were
really eliptical. Too bad there aren't any open-minded people in
universities anywhere who would take a bit of their time to take a look at
my Hollow Planets Seismic model and to compare its seismic predictions with
those of their solid Earth models. I'll bet they would be very surprised by
the results.
(WEBMASTERS NOTE: I'm only posting this article in order to underline the
scientifical problems with both the origin of the geomagnetism and the
understanding of "Gravity". Regarding other theories of "the hollow Earth",
I'll let it up to everyone for them self to decide. Ivar Nielsen)
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