Ceci n'est pas une pipe (APOD 2009 May 22)

[Chris Peterson]

Let me toss this snide comment right back at you - your "working theory" doesn't model reality particularly well. Look at all the invisible crap that has had to be invented (dark this and that) to make it work. And from what I can see not everyone agrees on ONE working theory either, so there is no "we" as you'd like to imply. Try not to be so uppity. There is room for more than just your opinion here.

Sorry, Noel. Sometimes tone doesn't come across as intended in forums like this. I wasn't being snide at all, my questions to you were serious ones.

There are tools that we can use to separate idle speculation from scientifically answerable questions. Your questions need quite a lot of additional development before they can even be considered seriously. Hence, my questions.

In fact, there are a couple of a widely regarded theories that deal with questions along the lines of yours. They do work quite well, and don't depend on anything that is "invisible". Any new ideas really do have to be considered in the context of existing, well supported theory. That is, in what way do the new ideas solve problems in existing theory? In what way do the new ideas improve upon or simplify the existing theory? How could we test the new ideas?

[bystander]

In fact, there are a couple of a widely regarded theories that deal with questions along the lines of yours. They do work quite well, and don't depend on anything that is "invisible".

Yes, I find it hard to give much credence to these theories because they require a variable speed of light and other inconstant physical constants (variable over time). Perhaps it's time itself that is variable. It's far easier for me to believe that there is something out there that we haven't been able to directly observe that is holding galaxies, clusters, and super-clusters together (dark matter) and something else causing the universe to fly apart (dark energy).

[Chris Peterson]

Yes, I find it hard to give much credence to these theories because they require a variable speed of light and other inconstant physical constants (variable over time). Perhaps it's time itself that is variable. It's far easier for me to believe that there is something out there that we haven't been able to directly observe that is holding galaxies, clusters, and super-clusters together (dark matter) and something else causing the universe to fly apart (dark energy).

I also don't give them much credence, because they don't seem to solve any problems. They aren't needed, and in my view they produce a more complex, less likely explanation for what we see. But at least, those are actually scientific theories, subject to test. Not very strong ones, but a good deal better than much of the speculation that gets casually tossed around sometimes.

[aristarchusinexile]

" ... Perhaps it's time itself that is variable.

Excellent step up towards a more freestyle contemplation. But I honestly cannot imagine why anyone would negate the probability of variable speed of light.

[The Code]

When the main man found that no matter how fast you can go.. light is always at a constant speed. Was he thinking outside the box? Or was he looking for something that everybody already knew? Or just an answer to what everybody wanted to know.. Are there no more questions that need answers? I,m as interested as Noelc to know the answers..To find something nobody has ever Found , Don,t you have to think out side the box?



Mark

[aristarchusinexile]

When the main man found that no matter how fast you can go.. light is always at a constant speed. Was he thinking outside the box? Or was he looking for something that everybody already knew? Or just an answer to what everybody wanted to know.. Are there no more questions that need answers? I,m as interested as Noelc to know the answers..To find something nobody has ever Found , Don,t you have to think out side the box?
Mark

I can't imagine why the speed of light should at all be regulated by our speed .. recognizing of course that our speed is not regulating the speed of light .. but I can't imagine why it should be a surprise that our speed does not affect the speed of light .. and I repeat finding no reason that the speed of light must remain constant regardless of observer or condition of observer. Laws are simply (and unfortunately sometimes) not inviolable.

[neufer]

Hello neufer,

A while back an image was posted that showed the red and blue shifting in the CMB indicating to me our movement in the Universe relative to it. The question that follows is this: Are we advancing toward Andromeda in relation to the CMB or is it the other way around?

Our whole local group of galaxies is moving at ~627 km/s in the direction
of galactic longitude l = 276°, b = 30° (vis-a-vis the CMB).

Now relative to our local group of galaxies the Andromeda Galaxy
is moving at ~150 km/s in more or less the same direction:
galactic longitude l = 301°, b = 22°.

So the Andromeda Galaxy is the faster [627+150 km/s] dog
chasing us (the slower [627-150 km/s] Milky Way cat)
as we all move in more or less the same direction vis-a-vis the CMB.

Of course the Local Group could just be going with the flow:
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<<Dark flow is a name given to a net motion of galaxy clusters with respect to the cosmic microwave background radiation which was found in a 2008 study. According to standard cosmological models, the motion of galaxy clusters with respect to the cosmic microwave background should be randomly distributed in all directions. However, analyzing the three-year WMAP data using the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, the authors of the study found evidence of a common motion of at least 600 km/s toward a 20-degree patch of sky between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela [galactic longitude l = 285°, b = 9°].

The authors suggest that the motion may be a remnant of the influence of no-longer-visible regions of the universe prior to inflation. Telescopes cannot see events earlier than about 380,000 years after the Big Bang, when the universe became transparent; this corresponds to the particle horizon at a distance of about 46 billion light years. Since the matter causing the net motion in this proposal is outside this range, it would in a certain sense be outside our visible universe; however, it would still be in our past light cone.

The results appear in the October 20, 2008, issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, which is available online. The authors state that they plan to extend their analysis to additional clusters and the recently released WMAP five-year data.

Astrophysicist Ned Wright posted an online response to the study arguing that its methods are flawed. The authors of the "dark flow" study released a statement in return, refuting three of Wright's five arguments and identifying the remaining two as a typo and a technicality, respectively, that, they say, do not affect the measurements and their interpretation.>>

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• . Finnegans Wake p 404
  
  I heard at zero hour as 'twere the peal of vixen's laughter among
  midnight's chimes from out the belfry of the cute old speckled church
  tolling so faint a goodmantrue as nighthood's unseen violet
  rendered all animated greatbritish and Irish objects nonviewable
  to human watchers save 'twere perchance anon some
  glistery gleam darkling adown surface of affluvial flowandflow
  as again might seem garments of laundry reposing
  a leasward close at hand in full expectation.

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[aristarchusinexile]

Zero Hour and Pipes? No Bong? No Cheech and Chong? "When I was a young man Momma told me how to live: But I didn't listen 'cause my head was like a sieve" Darned vixens luring me away from fishing.