> Em Sex 27 Fev 2004 21:42, Paul D. Fernhout escreveu:
> (...)
>
>>Anybody know anything about this Electric Sun or related Redshift
>>controversy?
>
> I remember vaguely about a friend saying that there was a guy on the Internet
> who claimed that the redshift is a collective hallucination of the scientific
> establishment.

That might be Halton Arp, described in detail at:
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

Other links:
http://www.quackgrass.com/roots/arp.html
http://www.dragonscience.com/

Essentially, based on evidence Arp has found telescopically such as that
pairs of very redshifted quasars appear to be associated with
differently redshifted galaxies (which he says generated them, other
astronomers argue it is all coincidence -- every last one, which he
argues is simply extremely improbable), he argues that newly emitted
quasars are redshifted in large part based on a factor other than
velocity, and these base red shifts are even quantized. Thus, rather
than being the oldest and most distant objects proving the big bang and
the expansion of the universe, quasars prove something else entirely...
Essentially, the "conspiracy" version of the story goes, Halton Arp was
a respected award winning astronomer, but as soon as he started
questioning the redshift dogma and expansion of the universe, he
suddenly couldn't get telescope time etc. anymore, etc. as the
established astronomers sought to shut him out of the big toys and the
playground.

The writeup on the above web page looks pretty convincing to me at first
glance (not being an astronomer) -- I would be interested to see someone
debunk it if it is nonsense. I particularly like this from that page,
because it is potentially very optimistic in a sense about ever
increasing resources in the universe: "If you read official explanations
usually placed on images such as these [claims of colliding galaxies],
you will see a preoccupation with the DEATH of stars and descriptions of
COLLIDING and MERGING and CANABALISING galaxies that are SMASHING
together. In actuality it is highly likely, in view of Arp's
observations, that what we are actually seeing most often is the birth
of galaxies and quasars not their deaths. And, instead of collision,
the separation of parent and offspring. Anyone looking at these images
in an unbiased way will see "fireworks!" - the birth and ejection of new
galaxies. And, if the universe is really expanding as Big Bang
proponents say, everything should be getting farther away from
everything else. Collisions of previously unrelated objects should be
highly improbable."

While it might not help with space settlement today, that notion of
galaxy creation both leads one to think there is lots of room to expand
into, and also that there may be as yet unknown ways of making matter
and energy from empty space. It certainly changes the dynamics of space
settlement if you can cruise anywhere in empty space and start making
stuff and power. Maybe those galaxies being born (or even quasars) are
just space faring species that have learned this trick?

To be clear, I'm not saying I necessarily agree with Arp (I only started
reading about this last night) -- just that this is a fascinating
alternative perspective on the nature of the universe, and if is true,
says a lot about how scientific establishments works in practice. Of
course, there are already plenty of examples of that [not saying I agree
with the rest of this page on cold fusion]:
http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/090902.htm
"The scientific community also defends its present dogma nearly to the
death, and it always has, as any historian of science is well aware.
Check out the actual history of things like conservation of energy
(Mayer), continental drift (Wegener) , the amorphous semiconductor
(Ovshinsky), ultrawideband radar (Barrett and Harmuth), etc. "

For example:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/wegener.html
"Reaction to Wegener's theory [of continental drift] was almost
uniformly hostile, and often exceptionally harsh and scathing; Dr.
Rollin T. Chamberlin of the University of Chicago said, "Wegener's
hypothesis in general is of the footloose type, in that it takes
considerable liberty with our globe, and is less bound by restrictions
or tied down by awkward, ugly facts than most of its rival theories."

I remember reading how Ovshinsky was laughed at and called a crank and
shut out of academic science for saying semiconductors could be
amorphous instead of crystalline -- and now we use his ideas in
producing solar cells, recordable CDs, and even batteries.
http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/ovshinsky.html

--Paul Fernhout

[quoting a website]
> "The scientific community also defends its present dogma nearly to the
> death, and it always has, as any historian of science is well aware.
> Check out the actual history of things like conservation of energy
> (Mayer), continental drift (Wegener) , the amorphous semiconductor
> (Ovshinsky), ultrawideband radar (Barrett and Harmuth), etc. "

As one of the designated defenders of dogma on this list, let me just
note that the vast majority of people treated with scorn by the
scientific establishment are in fact wrong. The cases where they are
not make news because they are unusual.

It's an unfortunate fact of life that humans tend to be parochial and
territorial, but it is a fact, and there's no getting around it. This
applies just as well to scientists as to any other group. The sole
advantage that science has over other areas is that in the long run it
trends towards truth, but that's cold comfort to the people who get
screwed in the short term.

......Andrew

Softly, softly, catchee monkey...

Em Sb 28 Fev 2004 17:43, Paul D. Fernhout escreveu:
> That might be Halton Arp, described in detail at:
> http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm
>
> Other links:
> http://www.quackgrass.com/roots/arp.html
> http://www.dragonscience.com/

Today I got the basics of the Arp's Controversy and... Well, I may see that
his arguments kind of shaken my faith in the Big Bang. In particular, the
"Fingers of God" - the unnaturally elongated, bissectioned shape of the Virgo
Cluster, when mapped assuming that redshift means distance - was a very
compelling image... Also, I couldn't find a page in the Internet containing a
debunk of Arp's arguments, contrarily to other easily refutable hypothesis
(creationism, hollow Earth, etc). Now I am curious to read Arp's book,
"Seeing Red"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0968368905/qid78003380/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/104-4316398-2071950?v=glance&s=books).

Of course I am still wondering how Arp explains Cosmic Background Radiation...

> While it might not help with space settlement today, that notion of
> galaxy creation both leads one to think there is lots of room to expand
> into, and also that there may be as yet unknown ways of making matter
> and energy from empty space. It certainly changes the dynamics of space
> settlement if you can cruise anywhere in empty space and start making
> stuff and power. Maybe those galaxies being born (or even quasars) are
> just space faring species that have learned this trick?

That's a tantalizing hypothesis, but then there *would* be a huge impact in
space settlements. For instance, maybe you could make habitable planets (and
their luminaries) from nowhere, and power your stuff with energy obtained
from nowhere, and that would turn obsolete the ideas of both space settlement
and terraformation. It is much like the hallucinogenic scenario portrayed in
the book "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect"
(http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/).

The only drawback for solar-system and galaxy creation by god-like
civilizations is: if space is not expanding, then space would become more and
more cluttered over time. Unless there are "Matter Drains", the opposite of
those "Matter Sources" (Materiequellen, borrowing a term from the German SF
series Perry Rhodan :-) proposed by Arp.

> Of course I am still wondering how Arp explains Cosmic Background Radiation...

Average temperature of the universal plasma IIRC.

--Paul Fernhout

>>While it might not help with space settlement today, that notion of
>>galaxy creation both leads one to think there is lots of room to expand
>>into, and also that there may be as yet unknown ways of making matter
>>and energy from empty space. It certainly changes the dynamics of space
>>settlement if you can cruise anywhere in empty space and start making
>>stuff and power. Maybe those galaxies being born (or even quasars) are
>>just space faring species that have learned this trick?
>
> (...)
>
> That's a tantalizing hypothesis, but then there *would* be a huge impact in
> space settlements. For instance, maybe you could make habitable planets (and
> their luminaries) from nowhere, and power your stuff with energy obtained
> from nowhere, and that would turn obsolete the ideas of both space settlement
> and terraformation. It is much like the hallucinogenic scenario portrayed in
> the book "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect"
> (http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/).

Thanks for the link.

> The only drawback for solar-system and galaxy creation by god-like
> civilizations is: if space is not expanding, then space would become more and
> more cluttered over time. Unless there are "Matter Drains", the opposite of
> those "Matter Sources" (Materiequellen, borrowing a term from the German SF
> series Perry Rhodan :-) proposed by Arp.

If everyone uses this technology to make matter and energy for their
habitats, as well as to make more habitats, it would seem that without
some sort of rotation to the whole group (like a galaxy) or shared
electrostatic repulsive charge (or other structural system?) that the
entire group of settlements might eventually collapse upon themselves
due to gravity -- perhaps becoming a black hole? Maybe life would
persist at the edges of this? So, instead of the Niven Ringworld
universe of the Pupetteers running away from a galaxy core explosion --
you have people running away from a "tragedy of the commons" galaxy core
implosion as everyone in that galaxy makes too much energy and matter
beyond some density gradient that can remain uncollapsed. And those
trying to survive eject quasars with their populations...

But matter drains might help some with this... You could surround your
habitat with matter drains as things were collapsing. The overall
gravity of the system might still be a problem though if you were to one
edge of it.

Sounds like an interesting premise for a hard sci-fi novel. :-)

--Paul Fernhout