Essay Abstract

The discovery that the Universe is accelerating in its expansion has brought the basic concept of cosmic expansion into question. An analysis of the evolution of this concept suggests that the paradigm that was finally settled into prior to that discovery was not the best option, as the observed acceleration lends empirical support to an alternative which could incidentally explain expansion in general. I suggest, then, that incomplete reasoning regarding the nature of cosmic time in the derivation of the standard model is the reason why the theory cannot coincide with this alternative concept. Therefore, through an investigation of the theoretical and empirical facts surrounding the nature of cosmic time, I argue that an enduring three-dimensional cosmic present must necessarily be assumed in relativistic cosmology--and in a stricter sense than it has been. Finally, I point to a related result which could offer a better explanation of the empirically constrained expansion rate.

Author Bio

I recently completed my PhD in physics at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, where I live with my wife and two kids, and have been criticising standard cosmology for its shortcomings and inconsistencies for the past few years. This essay presents the main line of argument from my dissertation, which was defended in March.

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Dear Daryl Janzen,

A truly excellent essay! Thanks for explaining Bondi's take on 'cosmic time' and Einstein's 'cosmic rest freame' and proceeding to elaborate on these concepts. While I am not as fixated on relativity as many here, your explanations and resolutions of the relativity issues ring true at first reading and make sense. I had intuitively come to the same conclusions, but your arguments reinforce but go way beyond intuition. Also thanks for the link to your dissertation. I look forward to that.

Your essay makes sense of what tends to be a hodge-podge of very confusing hocus-pocus and that is the very purpose of this particular FQXi essay contest. Congratulations.

I invite you to read and comment upon my essay, The Nature of the Wave Function, where I attempt to perform a similar feat in another area of great confusion.

I think you have a winner.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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    • Post #3

    Dear Daryl Janzen,

    I love it! An excellent piece. Your Figure 1 says so much. I have often thought there must be an absolute rest frame but of course I had no basis or justification for the thought. And SR works incredibly well. Many people are not even aware of Mach's thoughts regarding inertia.

    I am curious, why do cosmologists tend to think of the moment of the Big Bang as t = negative infinity? Is it because of the effects of relative motion upon time and hence, that is the only shared reference time?

    If I might impose, would you kindly take a look at my work regarding spherical time? I would be keenly interested in your interpretation of equations 7.2 and 7.3. One of them implies to me both a rest frame and a preferential frame of reference.

    Best Regards and Good Luck in the contest.

    Gary Simpson

    Houston, Tx

      Dear Edwin,

      Wow---thanks so much for your wonderful response! I've been planning to read your essay in particular, since I've been impressed by many of your comments on this site, so I'll definitely be giving it a go now that I've got mine submitted. Thanks for the invitation.

      I hope you enjoy the dissertation.

      Best,

      Daryl

      Dear Daryl Janzen,

      Congratulations with your interesting essay. I wish you success in this contest.

      I am not an astrophysicist or cosmologist and never thought about the redshift problem. But recently I thought about another problem and came to strange conclusions. My impression is that such a well-known phenomenon as spreading of the photon wave function has not been discussed in the contest of the redshift. My impression is that people discuss the redshift from the points of view of classical electrodynamics, General Relativity etc., but not quantum theory. The details can be found in my paper http://www.vixra.org/abs/1206.0074 . I would appreciate if you explain me whether my understanding is correct or not. Thank you. Felix.

        Dear Gary,

        Thank you very much! To answer your first question, the big bang in an FLRW model occurs where the scale-factor is zero. In Weyl's `de Sitter cosmology' that's at $t=-\infty$ because the scale-factor that multiplies space is $e^{2Ht}$. Weyl stressed the importance of this common origin for causal coherence. More realistically, the big bang is at $t=0$ though---e.g., see Eq. (5) in my essay. I will have a look at your paper.

        Good luck to you, too.

        Daryl

        Dear Felix,

        Thanks for the kind words about my essay and the well wishes. Without having read your work, I can tell you that cosmological redshifts are thought to be caused by the expansion of space through which photons are propagating, which causes their energy to decrease. I will try to have a look at your paper.

        Daryl

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        • Post #8

        Daryl,

        Thank you for an interesting and well-written essay.

        You wrote ". . . I argue that an enduring three-eimensional cosmic present must necessarily be assumed in relativistic cosmology -- and in a stricter sense than it has been."

        I agree, and I've long argued, on different grounds, for an enduring three-dimensional cosmic present. To cut straight to the chase, I've defined what I call "particular times" as being identically equivalent to a particular configurations of the universe. I further argue that what we perceive as the flow of time is, in reality, nothing more and nothing less than the evolution of the physical universe, an evolution which is governed by rules which we strive to understand and which we refer to as the laws of physics.

        Should these ideas hold any interest for you, I've amplified the themes in my entry for our current essay competition ('Rethinking a Key Assumption About the Nature of Time') and in a separate essay, 'Toward a Helpful Paradigm for the Nature of Time'.

        Thanks again for your essay, and good luck in the competition.

        jcns

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          • Post #9

          Daryl

          If this physical reality is expanding then it is omnipresent and therefore has no effect on measurements and cannot be detected. Or to be more precise, the chances of detecting any 'current' change, if it is not of the same value everywhere, is probably zero. What we can detect, indirectly, is alteration in this over considerable lengths of time.

          There is only timing, not time. Physical reality exists as at any given point in time (as in timing). Timing being a measuring system which compares rates of change, of themselves, ie irrespective of type. That is, numbers of changes are compared. For example, 40k crystal oscillations whilst man moved 3 yards (if you were using a quartz timing device).

          SR, as defined by Einstein, involves:

          -no gravitation

          -only motion that is uniform rectilinear and non-rotary (which is in effect, stillness)

          -fixed shape bodies at rest (no dimension alteration)

          -light which travels in straight lines at a constant speed

          Frames of reference, etc, are references (ie this is not an allusion to observation). As there are no absolutes, every judgement must employ one. The significance of a 'rest/stationary' frame (which could be any entity) being that it is not subject to dimension contraction, because that which causes that, also changes momentum.

          Observation (or indeed any form of sensing), has no effect on physical reality, but, obviously, it is important to know how that which is input to the sensory systems, occurs, in orderr to infer what originally existed (reality).

          Paul

            Dear Daryl Janzen:

            I enjoyed reading your well-written and logical paper. However, the paper seems to support, rather than criticize, the assumed cosmic absolute time and an accelerating universe expansion by the Standard Cosmology as per your concluding statement in the paper -

            "It is therefore only by reconceiving the relativistic concepts of time and simultaneity that SdS can be legitimated as a coherent cosmological model with a common origin--and one with the very factor of expansion that we've measured--which really should expand, according to the view of expansion as being always driven by Lamda."

            I would like to bring to your attention that if the missing physics of the spontaneous decay/birth of particles is included in the current theories, the observed universe expansion can be predicted without any cosmic time. My posted paper, From Absurd to Elegant Universe, describes the relativistic universe expansion (RUE) model as an alternative to the Hubble Model that predicts the observed so-called accelerating expansion of the universe without any explicit consideration of an absolute cosmic time, present, past, or future. It is shown that the so-called accelerating expansion is only an artifact of the incorrect over-extrapolation of the linear Hubble expansion in the far field; it is actually predicted as a relativistic expansion by RUE. It also derives a mechanistic relativistic equation for the Cosmological Constant. The uniformity of the CMB is explained via relativistic space-time dilation without the need for inflation.

            Please read my paper and I would greatly appreciate your thoughtful comments.

            Sincerely,

            Avtar Singh

              jcns,

              Thanks for reading my essay and commenting. Indeed, presentism is an old theory, and one that's been challenged by a number of philosophers, particularly in light of consequences from relativity theory. Therefore, the task I took up was not so much to expound the idea directly, but to reconcile the corresponding intuition with special relativity, for the purpose of eventually supporting the similar interpretation of a different relativistic description, in which that would be less obvious.

              Since you're of a similar mind as I am, I thought you might appreciate a quotation from Seneca, which to me provides a clearer description than anything I've read elsewhere:

              `Our bodies are hurried along like flowing waters; every visible object accompanies time in its flight; of the things which we see, nothing is fixed. Even I . . . , as I comment on this change, am changed myself. This is just what Heraclitus says: ``We go down twice into the same river, and yet into a different river.'' For the stream still keeps the name, but the water has already flowed past. Of course this is much more evident in rivers than in human beings. Still, we mortals are also carried past in no less speedy a course; . . . the universe, too, immortal and enduring as it is, changes and never remains the same. For though it has within itself all that it has had, it has it in a different way from that in which it has had it; it keeps changing its arrangement.'

              Good luck to you, too, and thanks for the references.

              Daryl

              Dear Avtar,

              I'll try to pick through the few things I think you have mixed up about my argument, according to your first statement. First of all, by the word `critical' in the title, I meant to indicate careful analytical evaluation, and not simply to pass negative judgement on standard cosmology. Indeed, the one argument is meant to provide physical motivation for the assumption of an absolute cosmic time in relativity, only not as it is given in the RW line-element, which further sets the corresponding present as actually being synchronous with fundamental observers. I also agree with the description of an accelerating universe, as this is the natural tendency of a universe that expands through the `de Sitter effect'. But there is nothing about standard cosmology in that last sentence, except a hope that the model would be empirically equivalent, according to the result stated above that; i.e., SdS is not isometric to RW, but I think it may be empirically equivalent to the particular FLRW model we observe.

              I will try to look more closely at your paper.

              Daryl

              Well, I guess you've got your opinions and I've got mine... On second thought, I do tend to agree with the last one.

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              • Post #14

              Daryl

              I would prefer none of us to have opinions, this is supposed to be science. Some statements may prove to be wrong in due course, but so long as they were correct given knowledge at that point in time, this is the best we can do.

              Paul

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              • Post #15

              Hi Daryl,

              Thank you for the quotation from Seneca. And yes, I'm certainly aware of the Presentism versus Eternalism debate which can be traced back to Heraclitus and Parmenides. The point I've tried to make in several essays which I've written for these FQXi competitions and elsewhere is that there is an actual correct answer to this ancient debate! We need not continue to debate the question forever! This is not the same as debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin! The correct answer, moreover, has important implications for our view of reality and for scientific theories which are based on our view of reality.

              I fully understand that you're probably far too busy to follow up on every reference which is sent your way. Nevertheless, I hope you might at least find time to read the following abstract from my essay Toward a Helpful Paradigm for the Nature of Time:

              "Abstract: Throughout recorded history, there has been a glaring lack of consensus regarding the nature of time. Not only is the topic a knotty one, it also has been made to appear more arcane, complex, and daunting than necessary by an insufficiently careful use of language. This paper offers definitions for what are called here 'particular times' (particular configurations of the universe), as well as for 'the flow of time' (the evolution of the physical universe). These lead to a new and helpful paradigm for the nature of time, as well as to falsifiable conclusions which are distinctly different from -- and mutually exclusive from -- conclusions which generally are believed to stem logically from the operational definition of time (time is that which is measured by clocks) upon which much of the edifice of physics is founded. "

              This is not merely some intellectual exercise in loosey goosey philosophy or metaphysics! There is a correct answer. For example, time travel either is or is not possible; we can't forever continue to have it both ways. Reasoning based on special relativity allows for the theoretical possibility of time travel. Reasoning based on the view of time presented in my essay does not. This is a real and important difference. Moreover, it is potentially falsifiable.

              jcns

              Dear Daryl:

              Thanks for clarification of the title. There are some other serious consistency problems with the concept of an absolute and unique cosmological time:

              1. An absolute cosmological time implies an absolute location wherein the Big Bang occurred. The open question is to identify this unique location in empty space of the universe, which would be the center of the universe. Widely accepted cosmology theories, consistent with observations, are based on isotropic universe, which is independent of a unique location as the center of the spherically expanding universe.

              2. Another widely used assumption is that when we look into the far field galaxies, we are looking into the early universe where the location of the Big Bang and the center should reside. On the other hand, the Hubble observations imply that we are at the center of the universe since the universe is expanding spherically and symmetrically all around us. Hence, the center and the edge of the universe, implied by an absolute cosmic time, can be flip-flopped and are impossible to define.

              3. Since time t=0 represents the Big Bang Singularity, there are well-known questions and presumptions about what was before the Big Bang that seemingly represents a supernatural creation out of nothing violating the laws of conservation.

              4. Clocks only measure the time interval, while the absolute time t=0 can be arbitrarily set (as in different time zones) by the observer. Where is the unique cosmic clock located in the universe and who set it t=0 at the instant of the Big Bang?

              Again, as described in my paper, the observed universe and galactic expansions can be explained without any explicit considerations of the absolute cosmic time or clock. Hence, the paradoxical presumption of a unique cosmic time may be scientifically unnecessary and irrelevant.

              Sincerely,

              Avtar

                Avtar:

                Your comments suggest to me that you lack an understanding of the basic concepts of cosmic time and cosmic expansion. A few quotations from Eddington's Expanding Universe might help you to better understand expansion:

                `The lesson of humility has so often been brought home to us in astronomy that we almost automatically adopt the view that our own galaxy is not specially distinguished---not more important in the scheme of nature than the millions of other island galaxies...

                `When the collected data as to radial velocities and distances [of these galaxies] are examined a very interesting feature is revealed. The velocities are large, generally very much larger than ordinary stellar velocities. The more distant nebulae have the bigger velocities... The most striking feature is that the galaxies are almost unanimously running away from us...

                `The unanimity with which the galaxies are running away looks almost as though they had a pointed aversion to us. We wonder why we should be shunned as though our system were a plague spot in the universe. But that is too hasty an inference, and there is really no reason to think that the animus is especially directed against our galaxy. If this lecture room were to expand to twice its present size, the seats all separating from each other in proportion, you would notice that everyone had moved away from you. Your neighbour who was 2 feet away is now 4 feet away; the man over yonder who was 40 feet away is now 80 feet away. It is not *you* they are avoiding; everyone is having the same experience...'

                The description given by the RW metric is of an isotropic and homogeneous (i.e., maximally symmetric) three-dimensional universe that multiplies in cosmic time. When the scale-factor that describes the form of this multiplication of maximally symmetric space is equal to zero, space is singular---i.e. it has zero extent.

                Please consider Fig. 1 in my essay, which graphs the evolution of Weyl's `de Sitter cosmology': at $t=-\infty$, all worldlines converge at a point; however, in the first instant of time space is infinitely large, with comoving geodesics distributed throughout Euclidean space that exponentially expands in cosmic time (Eq. (1)).

                Just about everything you've said in point 1 is incorrect. The standard model assumes maximally symmetric space that expands in cosmic time, which is, moreover, the proper time of all fundamental observers. Those *are" the basic axioms of standard cosmology, so to say that it only assumes maximal symmetry of space, or that maximal symmetry and cosmic time are mutually exclusive, is just wrong.

                On 2, there's no centre as you've written, just as there's no centre to the surface of a sphere or an infinite plane. When we look at distant galaxies, we are perceiving them as they were at earlier epochs, due to the finite speed of light. We don't take observations of isotropy to imply that we're at the centre of the universe, since we assume homogeneity as well, according to the cosmological principle.

                On point 3, t=0 is a big bang singularity in any model where the scale-factor, a(t=0)=0. In others, like the de Sitter cosmology mentioned above, it may be different. Since the scale-factor is a *scale*-factor though, the definition is arbitrary. What matters is the model that's been empirically constrained, which tells us that the big bang occurred 13.7 billion years ago, and how it has expanded since then. It takes two points to set a scale. The rest of what you've said in this point has been discussed a lot by other people, and I'd prefer not to get into it with you.

                On 4: see what I've written about point 3. Then, as described by the standard LambdaCDM model, which is a very successful empirical model, the big bang is at t=0---i.e. 13.7 billion years before now---on the clocks of *every* fundamental observer in maximally symmetric space. t=0 is not just an absolute time, though: the coordinate t is the common time held by each of these fundamental observers.

                Daryl

                J. C. N. Smith,

                `Reasoning based on special relativity allows for the theoretical possibility of time travel.'

                If you read my essay, you'd know that I disagree with that statement, as I see more reason for an interpretation of the theory in which time travel is identically impossible. You would also know that I already agree with the thrust of the argument in your essay, as well as much of what you've written. However, I hope you'd also see that I disagree with the notion that the changes we observe *are* the flow of time, since then the Universe (the present, the particular time, as you've called it) might not equably endure, which I think has to be a prior aspect of our existence.

                You've cited Augustine's Confessions: I'd refer you to the parts where he discusses the length of a day as 24 hours, regardless of whether the Sun stays still for a time or runs its course in only twelve, as well as the different durations of syllables. These are the types of reasons why I think time has to describe the equable endurance of a three-dimensional present. This is why I've described the present as real, and the past and future as purely ideal (in the original adjectival sense of the word idea that's used in philosophy, e.g. as defined by Johnson). But there is a reason why I haven't lingered much on this: if such a theory is to be acceptable, it must be consistently philosophically and mathematically reconcilable with physical theory, and there must be physical reasons to motivate its acceptance over other possible interpretations. This, therefore, is how I've argued for a reconception of time in my essay.

                As for the essay you linked for me: I liked it; I found it interesting and easy to read; and I agreed with most of what you wrote. If you're interested in knowing how much, you could read sections 2.1 -- 3.2 in my dissertation, which I've provided a hyperlink to in the references section of my essay. I think you'd like that.

                If you have any more questions or comments, I'd be glad to hear them. As I said before, I am trying to get to your essay for this contest. When I do, I'll try to post something for you there.

                Sincerely,

                Daryl

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                • Post #19

                Dear Daryl:

                Thanks for the clarification, and I understand the cosmic time and cosmic expansion used in standard cosmology as you mentioned:

                "The standard model assumes maximally symmetric space that expands in cosmic time, which is, moreover, the proper time of all fundamental observers. Those *are" the basic axioms of standard cosmology, so to say that it only assumes maximal symmetry of space, or that maximal symmetry and cosmic time are mutually exclusive, is just wrong."

                However, my point is that the fundamental assumption of "a synchronous time and clock in the entire universe" adopted by Standard Cosmology is directly in violation of the relativity of space and time and non-synchronicity of time at varying relativistic velocities (from near-field to far-field universe) demonstrated by the relativity theory. This assumption only holds approximately true in the near-field universe wherein the radial expansion velocities of the galaxies are small (V much less than C) compared to the speed of light because the relativistic effects are small. However, as my paper shows that in the far-field, wherein the velocities are large (V close to C), the standard cosmology deviates from predictions of the supernova observations resulting in the unexplained and paradoxical dark energy. The error results from the fact that at large velocities (V=C), both the space and time dilate to zero stopping the clock and dissolving any cosmic time. Hence, the fundamental assumption of a standard or proper cosmic time cannot be imposed on the far-field universe and must be corrected to eliminate the current inconsistencies and paradoxes that are artifacts of the basic axioms of the standard cosmology.

                Thanks for being patient as we are investigating the fundamental assumptions that are wrong in this forum.

                Regards

                Avtar

                Dear Daryl,

                Though a receding light source certainly looks redshifted so the redshift of galaxies can indicate that they recede from us -in which case our universe expands, a redshift does not necessarily mean that it actually recedes from us.

                The problem I have with the Big Bang hypothesis is that a Big Bang Universe lives in a time continuum NOT of its own making: here the existence of an absolute kind of clock is posited (be it an imaginary one), a clock showing cosmic time, the time passed since the bang, so in this universe it is the same time everywhere.

                As in a BBU the speed of light is interpreted to be a (finite) velocity (in contrast to referring to a property of spacetime, which is something else entirely), here we see a distant galaxy as it was in a distant past as it took its light so long to reach us.

                In contrast, a universe which creates itself out of nothing, without any outside interference has no such 'cosmic' clock, nor does it, as a whole, evolve IN time.

                A Self-Creating Universe (SCU) contains and produces all time within, so here clocks are observed to show an earlier time as they more distant -which is only possible if they (are observed to) run slower as they are more distant, even if they are at rest with respect to us.

                In other words: here we see galaxies shifted farther to red as they are more distant even if they are at rest with respect to us, so in a SCU we should find a linear distance-redshift relation, so this universe doesn't expand at all, let alone suffer an accelerating expansion.

                Though I find it sad to see how a learned and highly intelligent scientist as Stephen Hawking can waste his life on a hypothesis which, in the final analysis doesn't make any sense at all, I find it appalling to see how everybody and his dog in physics follows the same mantra, not even bothering to at least try to dream up contradicting creation scenario's, just for the fun of it, or, in the absurdities such schemes might lead to, affirm the original big bang hypothesis.

                For why the Big Bang isn't such a good idea, after all, see my essay, topic 1328.

                Regards,

                Anton Biermans