John M,

Yes, perhaps "we are at the center of our optical view of [the universe]". May I suspect that the radius of that sphere (IIRC about 15 000 000 000 lys) deserves a scrutiny? As a naive layman I wonder if it doesn't matter whether or not the measurement includes a relativistic correction of the Doppler effect. Recently I heard that mature structures of were found even as remote as 11 000 000 000 lys.

This was a surprise to the experts.

Eckard

John,

RE: What would space be, if it had no physical features to bend, limit, or move it? It would have two characteristics; One, lacking bounds, it would be infinite. Two; lacking motion, it would be inert.

What of the converse? That is, what would space be if it had physical features to bend, limit, or move it? I suspect the converse is true and I tried to support this in my essay contribution.

By the way, your puzzles on F = ma and what mass fundamentally is are not yet fully grasped. But I agree it may not be fundamental like length and time.

Akinbo

Akinbo,

Is nothing a point at the center of the page, or is it the blank sheet of paper?

If you dismiss space as anything other than a measure, the consequence is how to explain everything emerging from a point and where that point came from. On the other hand, if nothing is just empty space, then everything comes from this space being unstable; the fluctuating vacuum. Now given a fluctuating vacuum is already accepted by physics, then that makes the single point source superfluous. The universe we see can be based on convective cycles of this energy/mass dichotomy of expansion/contraction, with galaxies as the island universes, cycling energy out and mass in.

John M,

You provided a link to a different surprise, a putatively 13 000 000 000 lys old star pretty near to us.

IIRC it is also a challenge to explain the mature structures recently found at very remote locations.

While you are also a layman, your knowledge of cosmology is definitely much better than mine. I have no idea at all to what extend the measurement (of how far away remote stars are) depends on the relativistic "correction" to the Doppler effect.

Perhaps my request is in vain. We may also hardly expect an answer to the question what happened with Alois Krost, head of experimental physics in Magdeburg's Uni who took part in a conference and disappeared near the Arrowhead Lake.

Best,

Eckard

Thanks Tom for your Wheeler quote, "Space tell mass how to move; mass tells space how to bend.". If we listen to Wheeler, the following are worthy of contemplation:

1. Since nothing can act unless it can also be acted upon, there must be an action-reaction principle between body and space.

2. A space that can tell body how to move cannot be a 'big for nothing'. As Newton pondered, "...it is clear that they (philosophers) would cheerfully allow extension (space) to be substance, just as body is, if only extension could move and act as body can",pg.8

3. A space that can tell classical bodies how to move must also be telling quantum objects something. What is space saying on the quantum scale? It is our duty to investigate. That is why those like Joy Christian who are very familiar with that scale should get involved and tell us what is being whispered in that domain between space and quantum objects.

Akinbo

John,

I will be the last person to dismiss space as anything other than a measure. But your statement is not quite clear. For example, space is the epitome of place and the smallest unit of place is a point. So when you say "...where that point came from" you need to think deeply what that means. What does 'where' mean? Can a 'where', a point being one such 'where' come from another 'where'? And if you say it can, where did that other where also come from? When you contemplate these matters you may not but agree with Leibniz in paragraphs 4-6 of his Monadology, that a point is an extended place (monad) and it exists, and the only 'where' it can move to is non-existence. Likewise the only 'where' it can come from is non-existence. That is if you want to call a state of non-existence a 'where'.

Now talking about a 'fluctuating vacuum', if space is full of this annihilating and emerging activity are we not then re-discovering what Leibniz suspected all along? And which Newton hoped and yearned for but did not see because unfortunately he placed his trust in Plato that a point was of zero dimension?

Akinbo

Akinbo,

" What does 'where' mean? Can a 'where', a point being one such 'where' come from another 'where'? And if you say it can, where did that other where also come from? When you contemplate these matters you may not but agree with Leibniz in paragraphs 4-6 of his Monadology, that a point is an extended place (monad) and it exists, and the only 'where' it can move to is non-existence. Likewise the only 'where' it can come from is non-existence. That is if you want to call a state of non-existence a 'where'."

So doesn't this then mean there are an infinity of 'where's,' all of them inherently inert? Not all of them coming from one where.

Regards,

John M

Eckard,

Zeeya put up a post that I've been adding links to the various cosmic anomalies I keep finding.

I think what people think they are seeing definitely affects how they make and interpret measurements. To use the brick and mortar analogy, you can construct quite a variety of structures from the same bricks, but people just naturally tend to add onto what has already been built, rather than trying to tear the existing structure down. Occasionally though, an earthquake will come along and do that for them. What that earthquake will be and when, is an open question, but the structure is getting rather unstable now, due to the increasingly questionable nature of all the patches added and built onto what was a very speculative foundation laid out eighty to a hundred years ago.

Regards,

John M

John,

'So doesn't this then mean there are an infinity of 'where's,' all of them inherently inert? Not all of them coming from one where".

No. There is no infinity of 'wheres'. There is 'where' and there is 'nowhere'. Where comes from Nowhere and can return to Nowhere.

Where did the universe come from? Certainly, not from a thing or another universe. No place existed before the universe emerged and nowhere will remain if it will collapse.

Akinbo

" ... those like Joy Christian who are very familiar with that scale should get involved and tell us what is being whispered in that domain between space and quantum objects."

He has. There is no need to whisper, because there is no boundary between quantum and classical domains; they communicate smoothly. All along, the prime weakness of conventional quantum theory has been that it only *assumes* a point where quantum mechanics smooths out into classical functions, and cannot say where that point is.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

Not the opposite of redshift, but redshift as an optical effect, rather than doppler effect. Say that distance is a lens that redshifts light and the further the light travels, the more this effect compounds itself, so the further away it is, the greater the percentage of redshift. This creates a parabolic curve of the rate of redshift. Now the original assumption of Big Bang cosmology was of an initial expansion/explosion and the rate of expansion slowed proportional to distance, ie. a straight, descending line. Yet what they find is something of an inflection point at about half the age of the universe, where the rate of decreasing redshift slows and flattens out, creating the impression of a natural expansion. Yet if it is a compounding optical effect of distance, creating that parabolic curve, the inflection point is just the middle of the curve.

Regards,

John M

Akinbo,

If none of the 'wheres' can come from another 'where,' than you can't have them all coming from the same 'where.' They are either 'where' or 'nowhere,' so they can't have moved and each must be its own 'where.' So they are inert.

Is there is a limit to the number of 'wheres?' If not, then they are infinite, otherwise you have to explain what the boundary is and why there is no 'where' on the other side of it.

Regards,

John M

"Say that distance is a lens that redshifts light and the further the light travels, the more this effect compounds itself,"

John, the measure of redshift -- i.e., longer apparent wavengths as an object moves away from the point of observation -- is linear (in flat spacetime). If mere distance from the source had an effect, we wouldn't know what redshift means. You'd have to show that the laws of physics are not uniform over the universe, before you could even make your assumption.

" ... so the further away it is, the greater the percentage of redshift. This creates a parabolic curve of the rate of redshift."

The rate varies only as a function of linear motion. If z varied dependent on distance of the observer from the object, redshift measurement would be meaningless. That is, if a measurement z > 1 from where one stands on Earth is z < 1 at some point between Earth and the redshifted object, the object is moving forward and backward on the same line at the same time. In other words, a variable redshift on the same trajectory implies a blueshift for an observer moving toward the object at the rate equal to the object's recession. That would make Pentcho Valev happy, but it wouldn't be consistent with any physics we know.

(And you complain about 'fantastical' results from theorists? :-) )

Best,

Tom

Tom,

" You'd have to show that the laws of physics are not uniform over the universe, before you could even make your assumption."

And your assumption is that we know all the laws of physics, including what will affect light traveling trillions of miles, so in order to support that assumption we currently have to accept inflation, dark energy and the various other fixes. Yes, I know all about the controversies between 'tired light/steady state,' vs. big bang models, but at some point the larger debate will have to be reopened, as we keep finding evidence of structures that took longer than the assumed age of the universe to develop. We are pretty much up to the line now.

Did you read that paper by Christov I keep linking to?

1. Introduction

The propagation of waves in linear dissipative systems is well studied but most of the investigations are concerned with the propagation of a single-frequency wave. On the other hand, in any of the practical situations, one is faced actually with a wavepacket, albeit with a very narrow spread around the central frequency. This means that one should take a special care to separate the effects of dispersion and dissipation on the propagation of the wavepacket from the similar effects on a single frequency signal.

"5. Conclusions

In the present work, the effect of attenuation and dissipation on propagation of waves governed by the Jeffrey equation is addressed. When packets of small but finite breadth are considered the presence of dissipation changes the central wave number of the packet. The distribution of the wave length around the central length is assumed to be Gaussian which is the most frequently encountered case in cosmology when hot stars are observed. Dispersion relation for the damped wave equation is derived and the evolution of the packet density is investigated in time(or space). It is shown that the attenuation acts merely to decrease the amplitude of the shifts packed, while the dissipation damps the higher frequencies stronger than the lower frequencies and shifts the maximal frequency of the packet to lower frequencies (longer wavelengths), i.e., the packet appears redshifted upon its arrival. For Gaussian wavepackets, this kind of redshift is linearly proportional to the time passed or the distance traveled. The coefficient of proportionality contains the ratio of the dissipation coefficient and the initial width of the distribution which means that the thicker packets are redshifted more than the narrower ones for the same distance or for the same time. We call this liner relationship ''Hubble Law'' for redshifting of wavepackets."

Missing one little detail can throw everything out of whack.

Regards,

John M