On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 21:31:08 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:

On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 06:49:27 +0000 in episode
<413e96e5.49474320@news.gvtc.com> we saw our hero

Did you notice this passage from that page?:

"You might have heard the universe is almost surely flat, not
spherical. The flatness refers to its geometry being "normal," like
what is taught in school; two parallel lines can never cross."

More particularly, the paths of photons are, on average, straight
lines. I know of no aspect of Big Bang theory that would exempt it from
basic trigonometric analysis. But if you happen to know of such an
exemption, or if you can find one, or if you can find someone who knows
of one, I'd be most keen to hear all about it.

And that's an open invitation, by the way. If anyone can find any flaw
in my reasoning here, feel free to point it out.

I'm merely pointing out that while the universe may be flat, "distance"
seems a bit more slippery because of the expansion and relativistic
effects.

I'm pretty sure I constructed a demonstration that gets around those. The
angles are constant, no matter what happens with expansion.

Actually, my biggest complaint would be whether the resolution of the
instrument even allows for doing the measurements you tried.

I don't know. At ten pixels and less the resolution is pretty bad, but
the overall shapes are distinctly galaxy-like, and I don't see that there
are any other likely candidates for what those shapes could could be.

However, I think the first step is to see if there are any theoretical
problems with my approach. If there aren't, it then becomes an argument
(and hopefully a strong one) for why a more powerful telescope is needed.

Liz wrote:

On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 06:49:27 GMT,

The trig process I used is concerned with initial distances only. It
says nothing about distances at the time of arrival.

You are not just measuring the initial distances. You are measuring
the arrival of the light. Otherwise, you would have never "seen" the
galaxy that you measured.

The distances between the light's origin and the point of measurement
by the Hubble telescope are not static. While my maths are certainly
not correct, for the first billion years the light, which travels at a
constant speed, travels one billion light years, from the light's POV.
However, the expansion of space means that the distance covered is
larger than when the light started and will still continue to
subsequently expand during the second BLY of travel. The light then
travels the second BLY of distance, but at the end of the second BLY
the distance from the point of origin is 3.5 BLY because the space in
between has been stretched. So after 2 BLY of travel, the light is
now 3.5 BLY from its point of origin. And so on.

At least that's how I understand it.

Yes, and it has some interesting consequences. As the universe
expands, distant stars and galaxies seperate to the point that
we can no longer see them. Because they will be in space expanding
faster than the speed of light as seen at very distant points on the edges
comparatively speaking, We could see their fossil light as it were,
from the beginning, but not their later existance. There is an event
horizon beyond which we can never see.
In about 100 billion years, we will no longer be able to see distant
galaxies, we will only be able to see our local galaxy cluster members.
Eventually thanks to expansion of space, we will not be able to see even
these. The fossil light we see will gradually fade out.
We won't even be able to see any big bang backround radiation.
A future civilization born 100 billion years from now would know almost
nothing about the Universe around it.

Its quite possible we live in an expanding island Universe imbedded
in a far older Universe where everything we would want to see is beyond
the event horizon of an ancient Universe where expansion has forever hidden
the real world from us. We see only our local neighborhood.

This also solves Olber's paradox.
All those missing stars are over the event horizon set by expansion of
space itself.

A recent article in New Scientist told how the possibility of a new
big bang happening has been calculated. At any given point of time
and space it could happen but is very, very low. But as the Universe
expands, there is much more space, many more possible points
for something like this to happen.

It may take on the order of 100 billion years to get a situation where its
even odds.

But in a truely vast universe, we'd never know it was happening just over
the event horizon. If gravity moves at the speed of light as expected,
there is no way even in principle to beyond a certain point to prove
other island universes exist.

Unless of course the next big band happens very close to your
particular existing island universe or even within it.

I think you are ignoring the expansion factor.

billion year time intervals of travel

__________|_________|________|________|______|_____|____|___|__|_|
origin

distance at measurement --------------------------------------------->

Expansion of space would be such that there are limits to what you
can see when the expansion no longer allows you to see because
the speed of light from an object at a given distance or beyond
is no longer faster then a apparent expansion.

Imagine then you are moving in a giant bubble, and can
never run fast enough to catch up with the edge.
There is always a new edge, a new event horizon, thanks
to space's expansion, and the Universe steadily is going
over the horizon.
And no matter how fast you run in any direction, up to the
speed of light, you are always in the center of this event horizon
bubble.

There is a theory that the expansion of the Universe is speeding
up. If so, the event horizon bubble is always getting smaller.
And at a far distant date, the bubble will be so small you can't
fit inside, matter as we know it will no longer be possible.
As expansion catches up to the speed of light there is less room
in the Universe until there is no room at all left. Not even for a
vaccum and its quantum foam.

Everything is beyond the event horizon and all that is left is a
singularity. There is no more action in this Universe.

Which is where we came in.

On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 12:58:02 GMT, Liz <ehuth1@donotspam.com> wrote:

On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 06:49:27 GMT,

On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 21:09:43 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:

On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 20:27:04 +0000 in episode
<413df83d.8858698@news.gvtc.com> we saw our hero

Actually, that's not what the distance would be, that's what the distance
would have been. If expansion occurs equally in all directions, the
direction of travel when a photon arrives is basically in line with its
point of origin. That means the visual angle records how far away the
object was back when the light started traveling towards us. So if at
least one of those ten-pixel galaxies had a diameter of 60,000 light
years, then it was more than 21 billion light years away when the light
began its journey towards us. And presumably, the universe has been
expanding in the meantime, so it would have taken the light much longer
than 21 billion years to reach us. So, much more than 21 billion years
ago, it appears there were already galaxies that were more than 21 billion
light years away. I do not see a way to reconcile this with the Big Bang
prediction given above.

For one thing, the "Hubble bubble" that is our visible universe is
estimated at 78 billion light years in radius. The *age is 13.7 billion
years.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040524.html

While it seems paradoxical, the source of light that's been travelling at
the speed of light for 13.7 billion years is 78 billion light years away.

In an expanding universe, for a photon travel time of X years from A
to B, it is to be expected that the distance between A and B will be
greater than X light years when the photon finally arrives at B. But
the logical flipside of that is that the distance between A and B
would have been *less* than X light years when the photon originally
departed A.

The trig process I used is concerned with initial distances only. It
says nothing about distances at the time of arrival.

You are not just measuring the initial distances. You are measuring
the arrival of the light. Otherwise, you would have never "seen" the
galaxy that you measured.

The distances between the light's origin and the point of measurement
by the Hubble telescope are not static. While my maths are certainly
not correct, for the first billion years the light, which travels at a
constant speed, travels one billion light years, from the light's POV.
However, the expansion of space means that the distance covered is
larger than when the light started and will still continue to
subsequently expand during the second BLY of travel. The light then
travels the second BLY of distance, but at the end of the second BLY
the distance from the point of origin is 3.5 BLY because the space in
between has been stretched. So after 2 BLY of travel, the light is
now 3.5 BLY from its point of origin. And so on.

At least that's how I understand it.

The actual amounts being dependent upon the (curiously-named) Hubble
"constant" at the time--yes.

I think of it as if I were traveling on a large elastic sidewalk that
stretches out behind me.

And before you.

The distance I actually walk isn't affected
by how stretched the elastic becomes. However, the path behind me
from my starting point is much longer than the distance I actually
traveled because the elastic has been constantly expanding while I was
underway.

And the distance you have to walk to reach something in front of you
is also increasing while you walk.

At any point, I could turn around and measure the distance
between me and the starting point and the distance would be father
than I actually walked.

And at any point, the distance from you to a destination point ahead
will be less than you will have to actually walk to get there.

I doubt plain trig is going to cut it when things like that are going on....

Did you notice this passage from that page?:

"You might have heard the universe is almost surely flat, not
spherical. The flatness refers to its geometry being "normal," like
what is taught in school; two parallel lines can never cross."

More particularly, the paths of photons are, on average, straight
lines. I know of no aspect of Big Bang theory that would exempt it
from basic trigonometric analysis. But if you happen to know of such
an exemption, or if you can find one, or if you can find someone who
knows of one, I'd be most keen to hear all about it.

And that's an open invitation, by the way. If anyone can find any
flaw in my reasoning here, feel free to point it out.

I think you are ignoring the expansion factor.

Yes, that's right. I am. And so long as the expansion is uniform in
every direction, I think it should be safe to ignore it.

Going back to your elastic sidewalk analogy, imagine you are at the
convergence point of 12 such sidewalks, arranged equally in positions
corresponding to the numbers around a clock. At a certain time, two
people, both three miles away, start walking towards you, but one
person is on the one o'clock position sidewalk, and the other person
is on the two o'clock position sidewalk. During the time it takes for
them to walk towards you, all the sidewalks stretch equally so that
they actually have to walk six miles to reach you, and by the time
they reach you their points of origin are, say, 20 miles away (the
numbers are arbitrary because a changing rate of elasticity can be
devised to fit them). It doesn't matter how fast the sidewalks
stretch; it doesn't even matter whether the sidewalks grow or shrink;
so long as the sidewalks remain straight, the first person will always
be along the one o'clock line, and the second person will always be
along the two o'clock line, and the the angle between them, from your
perspective, will always be the same. Their arrival angle will thus
be identical to their departure angle. (ie. 30 deg.)

Now suppose that you don't know how far away these two people were
when they started walking towards you, but when they arrive they tell
you that they were a little over a mile and a half from each other
when they started. Given that information, and knowing that there is
a constant 30 degrees between their two sidewalks, you can grab a
calculator and easily work out that they were roughly three miles away
when they started, no matter how many steps it took them to reach you
and no matter how far away their points of origins are by the time
they arrive. It wouldn't even matter whether the sidewalks grew,
shrank, or did both alternately. If you know the angle, and you know
the initial distance between them, trigonometry tells you how far away
they were when they started.

Let me know if any part of that wasn't easy to follow.\