Monday, October 02, 2006

Large Scale Quantization

Redshift differences of double galaxies show a peculiar "grouping" of values.
This large scale quantization has a few interpretations - including one that suggest the Earth must be the center of the universe.
This observation is important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is our presumption of a "big bang" theory. Sadly, these observations also show a misunderstanding of velocity and red shift observation (which also show a general trend for dim objects to be travelling faster than bright ones.)
My views on the subject are more pragmatic.
  1. Light from the universe observed on Earth has travelled through millions of miles of dust and debris. This material has an effect on our observation.
  2. Any theory that says the Earth is the center of the universe is wrong. We simply are not that important.
This banding must then be an artifact imposed upon otherwise more generally distributed data.
The implications of this observation are that everything we see in the universe is filtered through the rose colored glasses of material that lies between us and that object. This calls into question almost everything we hold has constant in astronomical observation.
So, if the universe is not really expanding - but only looks like it is - what impact does this have on our ability to make statements about the age of the universe, evolution and age of objects, and even localized regions of space?
My last statement is even more profound;
  1. Dim objects are farther away, or just obscured by dust
Notice I did not say "moving more quickly away from us" although dim objects most often have red shifts which suggest this. We need to find a way to compensate for such errors.

3 comments:

Idahobeef said...

I just read this blog entry after watching "the Universe" on the Discovery Channel in which they said there is no "center of the universe", which seems stupid to me. Of course there is a center, the center of an explosion (the Big Bang). Your thoughts?

KyleH said...

One important indicator of a "big bang" is the observation that our universe is expanding in all directions. If this is true, some sort of bang makes sense. But what if our observation about expansion is in error?
Remember for one moment how Newton tied gravity to the mass of objects before Einstein later changed our understanding. Instead of one object acting on another, Einstein gave us a world where the fabric of space is warped by massive objects.
Our observation of the universe is certainly warped by the lens of material through which our observations are tainted.

KyleH said...

Currently searching for an updated data set. Anyone have a link?