“ Often the simplest of observations will have the most profound consequences. It has long been a cornerstone of modern science, to say nothing of man’s cosmic outlook, that the Earth attends a modest star that shines in an undistinguished part of a run-of-the-mill galaxy. Life arose spontaneously and man evolved on this miscellaneous clump of matter and now directs his own destiny without outside help. This cosmic model is supported by the Big-Bang and Expanding Universe concepts, which in turn are buttressed by the simple observation that astronomers see redshifts wherever they look. These redshifts are due, of course, to matter flying away from us under the impetus of the Big Bang. But redshifts can also arise from the gravitational attraction of mass. If the Earth were at the center of the universe, the attraction of the surrounding mass of stars would also produce redshifts wherever we looked! The argument advanced by George Ellis in this article is more complex than this, but his basic thrust is to put man back into a favored position in the cosmos. His new theory seems quite consistent with our astronomical observations, even though it clashes with the thought that we are godless and making it on our own. ”
—Editor of Nature Magazine, Paul C. W. Davies. (Nature, 273:336, 1978.)
At the end of each year, and the beginning of the new year, many people reflect on the past, present and look to the future… Maybe someone will be able to reflect and provide me, and possibly others, with the answer to this question:
Why is there so much deception in the world of science?
Geocentrism?
It’s has many meanings…
I recommend consulting Davies’s original review article. It’s two pages and can be downloaded for free here.
Kantian Naturalist,
I’d read it.
I was just reading Steven Weinberg’s book To Explain The World.
On page 251 this is what he says:
“If we were to adopt a frame of reference like Tycho’s in which the Earth is at
rest, then the distant galaxies would seem to be executing circular turns once a
year, and in general relativity this enormous motion would create forces akin to
gravitation, which would act on the Sun and planets and give them the motions
of the Tychonic theory. Newton seems to have had a hint of this. In an
unpublished ‘Proposition 43’ that did not make it into the Principia, Newton
acknowledges that Tycho’s theory could be true if some other force besides
ordinary gravitation acted on the Sun and planets.”
In other words, cosmologists and physicists chose dark matter because of their prior commitment to the Copernican Principle, instead of the tychonic model, which would also explain gravity…
Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis :
“People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations….For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations….You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”
I wonder if it can be demonstrated that every point in the universe is right at the center.
If the universe were expanding away in every direction at every point in the universe…
J-Mac,
Ellis’ model implies that the universe is infinitely old. Do you think he’s right?
Please please don’t let the religious cazys see this.
What if it is true?
“The biggest laughing stock in physics (aether)may yet have the last laugh.”
“Einstein didn’t prove that the aether couldn’t exist, merely that there was no need for it”
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24432543-300-einstein-killed-the-aether-now-the-idea-is-back-to-save-relativity/#ixzz69mjFU0iT
It just hit me: If the Copernican Principle can be discarded and relativity needs a new spacetime theory, maybe the speed of light is not constant either?
If it were true, the age of the universe would have to be adjusted too…
I still have yet to hear anyone give a coherent analogy of how everything can be moving away from everything else without there being a middle. The surface of a balloon analogy doesn’t really work, because there is still a center to a balloon. How are we supposed to ignore the center, as if the universe is only two dimensions.
There are explanations… but can they be tested? Do they fit the data? Math can be cooked, as proven by Einstein’s/Lorentz length contraction in Michelson–Morley experiment…
Imagine the balloon was solid
Ok, does a solid balloon have a middle? If so, everything is still moving away from that point.
What do you mean by explanations?
J-Mac,
If there was an explanation, and the explanation consisted of real dimensions that we can imagine, why can’t a simulation of such an explanation be made that one can visualize? Why would we need to know the math, just show me the picture, what does a three dimensional universe look like that is expanding in all directions, but that has no middle?
Are we to imagine it as two dimensional even though its three dimensions?
ID in a nutshell.
Yea, one can say the same about bogus science, only math and no reality.
The big bang is the explanation…
But with CMB’s (axis of evil) confirmed, the big bang model does fit the data anymore… 😉
Good point! See my comment right above.
Einstein and others did their magic math that no longer works with the current model of the universe because it can’t account for 96% of it…
Some consider aether as a solution but there is a danger hidden in it. If aether is to account for dark energy and matter, as well as to explain quantum entanglement, then the constant speed of light needs to be abandoned… If that’s abandoned, and light can travel almost instantaneously, then the age of the universe would have to be adjusted too 😉
You haven’t been listening, I’m sorry to say.
We have patiently explained this to you, with math and with analogies.
Suppose there is a ‘middle’. It does not matter where the middle is, nor where you, phoodoo, are. You will view yourself as the center of the expansion, and the LGM hanging out in the Baby Boom Galaxy will view themselves as the center of the expansion.
DNA_Jock,
You tried an analogy and it failed. I explained this to you patiently, but you weren’t listening.
Its not the nothing of the outer edge that matters to my point. You didn’t get that then, and you still seem to not get it. You also claimed that you used three dimensions. You understand three dimensions right?
You can take a piece of rubber paper, and stretch it in all directions and claim that everything is moving away from everything else. Of course there is still a middle, even in your two dimensional miss, and thus the outer edges have quite a different perspective than the middle does. Its the same problem with the balloon. Looking from the edge of the balloon into the center provides quite a different perspective then it does looking the opposite direction of the middle. You can’t deal with that dimension.
Making up math, that doesn’t relate to reality doesn’t save you.
Doughnut shaped universe???
https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2008.854
J-Mac,
Make a compass. North, South, East and West. Also mark NE, NW, SE & SW to make it clearer. Each point on the compass is one meter away from the center. Now move North, South, East and West one meter further away from the center. Do the same for NE, NW, SE and SW, move them one meter from center. So all points have doubled from the center. The distance from north to south doubled, and the distance from east to west doubled.
Did all the other distances double? Is Southwest moving at the same rate away from South as it is from Northeast?
What about from Centers perspective?
Seqenenre,
See the compass.
Yes.
Every.Single.One
Well, no: both distances doubled. So, from SW’s point of view, NE went from 2 away to 4 away, while S went from 0.765 away to 1.53 away.
Exactly the same: any point on the surface is now twice as far away as it was before. You may have failed to notice that nearby points move away more slowly than distant points do, whatever your point of view.
Do you see it now?
DNA_Jock,
I thought they were all the same distance away at some point?
It’s why the balloon analogy can’t have a center. When they were all the same distance away and they went one unit away from each other, they doubled from each other, but only went one unit from the center, not two.
Do you think we know where the center of the earth is? Why? Centers perspective is always unique.
phoodoo,
Think of it this way: throw ten darts into your compass.
Stand at the center of the compass.
Measure the distance each is from you, phoodoo.
Let the compass expand.
Re-measure the distances.
Every single distance has doubled, leading phoodoo to conclude that phoodoo, at the center, has a unique perspective.
But, here’s the fact that you are having trouble with:
Your cousin Vinnie, standing a quarter mile NNE of you, also measures the distances that the darts are from him before and after the expansion. Vinnie observes that every single distance doubles, leading Vinnie to conclude that HE is at the center of the expansion.
The math I gave you a year ago proves this result in three dimensions.
I think another way to look at is, EVERY point is at the center, because from every point the perspective is unique.
DNA_Jock,
Jock, did you even read what I wrote or are you just locked into believing what you believe?
All points start at 0,0 . Now move each point one meter away, but the center still remains? How many meters has south moved from center? How many meters has North moved from center? Now how many meters has North moved from south? Two meters. Yet nothing has moved two meters from center, they all have only moved one meter.
Your math only works if we ignore center. For all the analogies to work center has to disappear. And keep getting bigger.
Where is the center in the universe? It’s continually disappearing?
DNA_Jock,
Furthermore, south and southwest at one time were the same distance away from each other as South and North were, why are they moving away from each other at the same rate, but south and southwest use a different rate?
But center doesn’t care which direction it looks, it’s all the same.
If there are things on the outside of your balloon, they have a totally different perspective from everything on the inside of your balloon. The outside of your balloon gets less dimensions.
Again it’s why you have to have your balloon ignore center. You are not allowed to look in that direction.
Yeah, so everything is the center. Simple as that. Otherwise, at what point in the expansion process does the center pop into existence?
So which physical analogy has no unique center, a three dimensional ball that only has two dimensions?
A finite, but unbound universe I think is the answer, but that’s well above my paygrade
https://futurism.com/finite-yet-unbounded
ETA: added link
The initial singularity is a whole other problem. Let’s just say that all points start really close together…
Not really. This conversation focuses on the post-cosmic-inflation expansion of the universe.
From what you have written here, I think you have mis-understood the ‘balloon’ analogy. AIUI the balloon analogy is offered up as a way to visualize how everything could be expanding uniformly. In the analogy, existence is two-dimensional, and exists on the surface of a balloon that is being inflated. Thus all distances in all directions are expanding, like the surface of a balloon.
You, phoodoo, are thinking of the balloon as a three-dimensional shell. This is apparently a common misconception. Because you are ONLY considering points on the surface of this shell, you reckon that the center of the balloon has a unique perspective. And you would be correct, if all of the stars and galaxies were expanding from a single point and were EQUIDISTANT from that point.
But that is not the case. We do not observe an expanding shell, but rather an expanding fruitcake. Inside the expanding fruitcake, everybody thinks they are at the center of the expansion. The topology of space-time is a further issue, as dazz’s finite-but-unbounded link explains.
I was just telling myself: That big bang should come much later 😆.
phoodoo,
There is no need to discuss the expansion of the universe resembling a balloon, or a raisin-bran-muffin…
The universe is not homogenous, as confirmed by CMBs with 3 probes over 20 years… The only logical constant (reference) appears to be the earth near the center of the universe…
Relativity can explain some aspects of different models of the universe but can’t be an omnipotent solution, like natural selection in the theory of evolution….
The big bang model doesn’t fit the currently available data…
What is an alternative model with the expansion of the universe and a beginning?
“In the beginning God created (first) the heavens and (then) the Earth.”
What model of the universe could fit this data?
If the heavens (stars, galaxies) were created first, then the light from them would have to travel to the earth for billions of years… But if relativity is incomplete, or dead wrong-about the constant speed of light, then the universe doesn’t necessarily have to be that old… and so on…It wouldn’t be the first time Einstein was wrong…😉
DNA_Jock,
Yea yea, let’s just ignore the math now. Let’s just say close, because sometimes math is so messy and all, close is good. It’s 2020 , the new Jock. The new Jock hates math.
Now let’s get really funny. I have misunderstood the balloons. Right, let’s be ridiculous, why not. Since it is me who has been saying all along that the balloon analogy only works if it’s two dimensional and we don’t have a middle. Now queenly you want to say, oh of course phoodoo was right all along, but how to express that? I got it, turn the conversation on its head and say I misunderstood all along. Let’s be absurd shall we.
But since you are already acknowledging by being a fruitcake let’s go on to the fruitcake analogy. If you watch the video, notice what he says. The fruitcake is infinite. So it’s infinite and yet it has a shape. More nuttery. And being that it is infinite, and is expanding, there is no middle, because infinite has no middle. So just like a fruitcake, except nothing like a fruitcake , in that it has no shape and is expanding in all directions, and perhaps is also two dimensional.
You know, just like fruitcakes in fruitcakeville. At least it has colorful things inside. Well, we can’t say inside, because there is no outside, but still…
Fruitcakeville it is!
Oh, and by the way, the objects in the fruitcake, they are all moving in every direction, just like you would expect from an explosion that starts at one point, and everything is moving away from a central point. You know, like you detonate a bomb, and yet some pieces are moving towards the explosion instead of away. Because there is no bomb and the big bang is another fake analogy in fruitcakeville.
In each of these comments, you are referring to points that reside somewhere NOT on the surface of the balloon. As explained in the rather accessible cosmology tutorial I referenced, such points DO NOT EXIST.
Thank you for demonstrating that you do not understand the balloon analogy. Along with many other things – relativity, probability, expected values…
Yawn.
What part of this did you not get Jock?
This shows to you that I completely understand the analogy, and the analogy is that its a three dimensional balloon that is actually only two dimensions. That’s why I said its a bad analogy, because we then have to pretend that the middle of the balloon doesn’t exist. There is no interior. The world becomes a flat piece of paper. Only you already know that three dimensions exists, so we are supposed to pretend we don’t know this. I started this whole point off by saying this for crying out loud! Now you are coming back and trying to tell me, oh, by the way, it’s only two dimensions, so see you don’t understand the balloon analogy, blah blah…
You then go on to quote me explaining why the balloon analogy can’t work in three dimensions, because then there would be a middle.
Oh, but it can be a fruitcake! Haha. Who doesn’t understand the analogy Jock? So now it’s not like a balloon, because the dimension problem, instead it’s a three dimensional fruitcake in fruitcakeville that has no middle because it’s infinite.
So if it’s infinite why in the world would we call that like a fruitcake, do you know many fruitcakes that have no shape?
So now go and try to say I don’t understand the analogy again, by perhaps saying well, you see it’s infinite…
Read again for Jock. It only works if we ignore center. If center disappears! Get it yet???
The center of a balloon has to disappear. How many times would I have to write that before you would get that this is exactly what I said.
Now the semi obvious question might be, if they are going to make the balloon two dimensionaĺ, why don’t we just make it a flat circle instead of a balloon, because that is actually two dimensional?
The reason goes right back to my point, if the balloon gets flattened out, you are back to having a middle again.
So now we have to distort the analogies some more, so J Mac gives us the doughnut. Why is the doughnut useful, well because the middle disappears again. But then what, as it expands does the hole in the middle get bigger, or does it get smaller or does it stay the same size hole and only the outer perimeter gets bigger?
If the hole size in the middle doesn’t matter, can it just be the size of a pinhole, just big enough so that we can pretend it doesn’t exist, so we don’t call it a middle and mess up our analogy again?
Near?
Heck, the more I think about it, if we are just going to eliminate dimensions when we feel like it, why not eliminate the second dimension as well, and just use the analogy that the universe is like one dimension, infinitely small, and also infinitely long. Why not, right?
If a balloon surface is able to contain things with zero height, then why not go with zero width as well.
J-Mac,
If it were the shape of a doughnut, with a hole in the middle, but the hole doesn’t exist, what would being near the center mean? Its near that thing that doesn’t exist?
Rubbish. We need look no further than our nearest neighbours. The Sun’s apparent motion accords entirely with it being caused by our elliptical orbit around that much greater mass. We can predict daylengths, tides, phases of the moon and eclipses using similar geometries. We also get apparent parallax of distant stars – they too are in on the deception.
In order to sustain Ellis’s ‘philosophical’ stance, a completely unknown physics must be in operation, giving some peculiar motion to these bodies that supposedly orbit us but look as if they too are orbiting the sun in 8/9 roughly concentric ellipses. And while, for example, Jupiter’s moons are ‘really’ in orbit, consistent with relative masses, our own moon isn’t.
That is quite some trick Ellis is trying to pull, trying to get us to doubt observation by pretending a geocentric universe can be constructed by mere shift of perspective. Some strange force is going to an awful lot of trouble to kid us that spherical geometry is a predictive but ultimately incorrect approach to motion locally.
Nobody is eliminating dimensions to pretend there are less dimensions in reality. It’s just a way to make the concepts easier to understand.