"Dark Energy" Goes Begging

At the American Physical Society (APS) April meeting in Atlanta, physicist Saul Perlmutter again argued for more dollars to find hypothetical "dark energy". In 2011 Saul, Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess split the Nobel Prize for claiming to discover DE. Unsatisfied with a measly 1.4 million dollar prize, they want 1000 times more money for a Space mission--once called SNAP, later JDEM, now WFIRST. Because of delays to the James Webb Space Telescope, WFIRST or anything like it will not fly until 2025 if ever. Nobel Prize or not, there is very little public support for "dark energy".

A supernova discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope on January 25, 2012 has been named by Adam Riess and his team at Space Telescope Science Institute for Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski. This has led many to complain that only the International Astronomical Union can name an astronomical object. Keith Cowing of NASAWATCH called it Shameless Kissing Up to Congress at STSci. Nobel holder Adam Riess chose to defend himself in comments on Keith's blog post, with a supporting comment from Tod Lauer. Naming an exploding star for a sitting US Senator does seem like a desperate bid to curry a woman's favor.

The claim of "dark energy" rests on one main line of evidence, redshifts of Type Ia supernovae. Redshifts of distant objects increase linearly with distance, indicating expansion of the Universe. supernova redshifts appear to increase non-linearly, leading to speculation about acceleration and "dark" energies. A slowing speed of light, predicted by the simple equation GM=tc^3, fits the supernova redshifts precisely. The answer to the DE mystery lies not in darkness, but in light. If Nobel Prize winners are smart, why haven't they figured this out?

UPDATE: In the past day this story and outrage has spread to websites like the Daily Caller:

A New Way To Bribe Congress

"NASA’s pathetic move to name the Hubble data archive after the Senator (Mikulski) who controls their appropriations."

Also the conservative National Review:

Shameless Politicians Continued

One quarter of a Nobel Prize is still a great honor, one that no woman has received since 1963. Let us hope it is not sullied.

Model of the Universe

I have started a new project on Kickstarter, to spread models of the Universe. You've seen globes and models of the Moon, planets and solar system. For the cost of a latte, you will have a downloadable model of the entire Universe sitting on your desktop! The model also includes the stars and constellations of the hemisphere. Any proceeds will go toward publication costs and registration at an international conference I'm invited to. Check it out and tell all your friends!

Happy 3.14!

Albert Einstein's birthday is easy for mathematicians to remember, March 14 or 3.14! The Einstein-de Sitter Universe has a "critical" density of (6 $\pi$G t^2)^(-1), a density that keeps it from collapsing or expanding without bounds. Scientists long wondered why the density is exactly this, invoking strange ideas like "inflation" to explain it.

A cosmology where GM=tc^3 actually predicts that the "critical" density is in fact the stable density. If the Universe were less than this density, matter would be created via pair production until this density were reached. For a 4-dimensional spherical Universe of mass M, initial density is just (2 $\pi$^2 G t^2)^(-1). Difference between initial and final density is the difference between 3 and $\pi$ or 4.507034%. The density of baryonic matter that has been measured by the WMAP spacecraft may be precisely predicted from pure math.

Ancient Greek mathematicians first thought that the ratio between a circle's circumference and diameter was exactly 3, then later wondered why it should be an irrational number like 3.14. Fortunately $\pi$ does not equal 3, or the matter that we are made of would not exist!

The Capitol Dome

The entrance to our hotel in Washington is in sight of the Capitol Dome. Something is universal about the spherical shape. Domes have been part of human architecture for thousands of years. The architecture of our bodies is full spherical cells. Moons, planets, stars and even raindrops form spherical shapes. Many great thinkers have thought that the Universe itself is spherical.

Blaise Pascal, one of the great mathematicians of all time, thought the Universe was spherical. "Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere," wrote Pascal. Edgar Allen Poe, who lived near here in Baltimore, also thought the Universe was spherical. The spherical Universe was subject of Poe's EUREKA, a prose about cosmology. Among all his great works of poetry and fiction, Poe was most proud of the little-known EUREKA.

Most prescient, Poe suggested that this spherical universe expanded from a tiny point! "From the one particle. as a center, let us suppose to be irradiated spherically--in all directions--to immeasurable but still to definite distances in the previously vacant space." 75 years later Alexander Friedmann, who was a big Poe fan, also predicted an expanding Universe.

Einstein realized that if the Universe contained enough mass, gravity would bend it into a sphere of four dimensions. He also realized that gravity would also cause the sphere to collapse, unless it were already expanding. Einstein then added a repulsive "cosmological constant" to prevent collapse. Later, when Edwin Hubble's observations showed that the Universe was expanding, Einstein considered the CC his greatest blunder.

Today it is fashionable for cosmologists to say that our Universe is flat, like the Earth. If you question cosmologists, they will first ignore you but then admit that on the large scale it must be spherical. If the Universe expanded from a tiny point, it is topologically impossible for it to be flat. The exponential expansion called inflation would have expanded the sphere so much that it would appear flat to our observations. On the largest scales, the Universe must still be spherical.

The beauty of the Capitol dome reminds us that the spherical shape is universal. Applied to the Universe, great thinkers like Pascal, Einstein and Poe considered our Space/Time to be spherical. Edgar Allen Poe made amazing predictions like an expanding universe. Einstein first proposed a cosmological constant, then considered it a great blunder. Though it is fashionable to say the universe is flat, fashions change with time.

We finish the meeting with a banquet at the Rayburn Senate Office building, close to the Capitol. As the spherical Sun disappears behind the curve of a spherical Earth, we are reminded how universal the sphere is.

Higgs To Be Confirmed, Or Not

A headline in Christian Science Monitor confidently states:

The God Particle Existence To Be Confirmed by 2012

This refers to the elusive Higgs Boson, whose existence is predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. The term "God Particle" was coined by physicist Leon Lederman in the 1990's while seeking funding for the Superconducting Supercollider. When that project was cancelled by the Clinton administration, it was a huge setback for US science. Physicists had to find work in other fields, like cosmology.

Since SSC was cancelled, the Large Hadron Collider has been built in Europe. Though the headline predicts a discovery, so far LHC has found no Higgs. The phase space it could inhabit has grown smaller. By 2012 LHC may have found no Higgs at all.

In big ticket projects, there is a great danger of overconfidence. Scientists must justify their funding by predicting what they will discover. Gravity Probe B was designed to find evidence of relativistic frame dragging. Though the data proved difficult to separate fr noise, Grav Probe 's operators concluded that they had confirmed relativity. There is great pressure to skew the results toward a preselected discovery.

Since the SSC was cancelled, many physicists moved into studies of the Universe. In the late 1990's they claimed discovery of a repulsive "dark energy" causing the universe to accelerate. Following the habits of Physics, they developed a "standard model" for cosmology. Results of other experiments, such as WMAP, were interpreted as confirming the model. As in the Higgs search, there is great danger of overconfidence. Future experiments may confirm that "standard models" are wrong.

Trapped by the Webb

While the press crows about "dark energy," the real story is that Physics support is sinking. The Director of NASA's Astrophysics Division lords over a shrinking plate of projects. As this little blog has reported in What a Tangled Webb We Weave, When First We Practice to Deceive, and other posts, costs of the James Webb Space Telescope are consuming most of his budget. Some scenarios have JWST not launching until 2022-24. Any SNAP, JDEM, WFIRST or similar mission could not launch for at least 7 tears after.

Despite the press stories, only a tiny minority of scientists believe in "dark energy." Others try to invoke its existence to try to get more of the shrinking funding pie. There is not a single particle or track in a bubble chamber to prove DE's existence. Like the Emperor's New Clothes, it can only be seen by an enlightened few. With JWST delays, a "dark energy" mission will not fly until at least 2030! Long before then the world will know that the universe isn't accelerating, but light is slowing down.

The Dark Emperor's New Clothes?

Aloha from Waikiki!

Another study has been released, of galaxy clustering, that claims to be consistent with an LCDM cosmology. In the press it is trumpeted as "confirming" the existence of a repulsive "dark energy." Like the Emperor's New Clothes, DE needs repeated confirmations by it's believers that it exists. What are they insecure about? More about this coming soon.

UPDATE from COSMOS magazine May 24:

"This is a remarkable survey, and a convincing fit to the standard hypothesis of a homogeneous cosmology that includes Einstein's cosmological constant," said Thomas Buchert, a professor of cosmology at Claude Bernard University, France.

"However, it does not rule out alternatives to the standard model, and it does not prove that dark energy 'exists'."

This view is also taken by David Wiltshire, a theoretical cosmologist from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. "If one makes the assumption that the universe expands as a uniform fluid, then these measurements are independent evidence for dark energy," he said.

"However, I see no reason for making the standard assumptions." Wiltshire himself prefers an alternative model of the universe that has no need for dark energy.

Herd in Dallas

This has been a very busy week at the huge American Physical Society meeting in Dallas. APS has taken over the convention center and most of the good hotels. There was a large and attentive audience for Monday's talk: Lunar Orbit Anomaly and GM=tc^3 Cosmology. Tuesday was filled with poster sessions and meetings with APS journal editors. Wednesday started with another meeting, this one with Physical Review Letters. The Physical Society of Japan is holding a collection for tsunami relief. Scientists came from every continent to hear talks.

In front of the convention center is this sculpture of cosmologists. The herd finds it easy to follow fashionable ideas, be they "inflation" or "dark energy." Has anyone told them the awful fate that awaits the end of their journey? How inflation can never be proven experimentally? How "dark energy" will be remembered alongside ether and epicycles? As physicists head for slaughter, they feel safe in their great numbers.

Play It Again Sam

The Houston area has a new stage production of Woody Allen's PLAY IT AGAIN SAM. Woody's character dates a variety of women, giving someone the chance to play multiple roles. Vanessa the redhead has her own distinct philosophy:

VANESSA: I've had many men, my first at twelve. After that it was an endless stream. Poets, writers. I lived in a house with five actors. Some of them were gay, but what does it matter? I straightened them out. It was a challenge. My life has been a continual round of orgies. I took on the entire Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity at Yale in three hours. It's still a record in New Haven. I've always thought of sex as something open and wonderul, to be enjoyed as fully and frequently as possible. What do you take me for?

A more educated view of cosmology is given by this intellectual girl:

GIRL: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous, lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of man, forced to live in a barren, godless eternity. A tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black, absurd cosmos.

ALLEN: What are you doing Saturday night?

GIRL: Committing suicide.

ALLEN: What about Friday?

Given today's experience with "dark energy," even some educated people can never get over their own predispositions. To them everything is dark, dark, and doomed to failure. The Universe will be torn apart in a Big Rip. Science can never explain our observations. Theories that shed light on the Universe can't possibly be right. Could silly speculations about a Universe of "dark energy" be reflections of scientist's own dark thoughts? They need to laugh and enjoy the show!

PLAY IT AGAIN SAM runs February 11 to March 6!

The Virus Spreads to France

The view from the window on a previous trip to Paris. Things have been so busy that this paper from over a year ago was missed. It was written by Russell Badgoo in France:

L'augmentation de l'unité astronomique, est-elle causée par l'effet d'éclipsé Allais?

The critical paragraph, translated into English:

"Many cosmologists believe that the gravitational constant decreases secularly over time. Or that light slows down the expansion of the Universe. Based on the equation GM = tc^3, they consider that a rate change time is mathematically equivalent to a change in speed of light. If c slows the return time of a radio wave continues to grow, making the Moon's recession and the AU appear longer and giving the impression that the universe is accelerating."

The most famous equation of the last century is, of course, E=mc^2. Almost no one cites an Einstein paper when they use this equation, because the whole world knows who authored it. This adds to mentions, nearly all unsolicited, from Venezuela, Canada, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, the US and more. Though publishing papers about the speed of light is still quite challenging, people worldwide are finding out. Truth can never be suppressed, and the virus is spreading.

"Flatness"

The oddly named "flatness problem" doesn't indicate that the Universe is flat like the Earth (they are spherical) but refers to density. If the Universe were too dense, it would collapse under its own gravitation. Somehow it has a critical density $\Omega$ that allows it to expand asymptotically, slowing but never stopping or reversing its expansion. If this density varied even slightly, the imbalance would accumulate and make the Universe unstable. Old models do not solve this mystery.

A cosmology where GM = tc^3 is driven toward the stable density. The difference is made up by you and I, the matter we are made of. When the Universe is "underweight," quantum mechanics predicts that matter will appear via pair production. As we saw in the last post, the amount of this matter is the difference between $\rho$i and $\rho$f, or 4.507034%. This unique prediction is precisely confirmed by the Wilkinson Microwave Anistropy Probe.

In their paper on Time-Varying Speed of Light Albrecht and Maguiejo do not solve the flatness question, but suggest that a varying-c cosmology may someday answer it. Once this paper was published, Albrecht and Maguiejo discovered to their consternation that John Moffat had published a similar paper years earlier. They were all preceded by Thomson (Lord Kelvin) in 1874, so changing c is an old idea. Only in the 20th century, along with communism and fascism, did fixed c become dogma.

From their paper we can use Albrecht and Maguiejo's equation (10). Here R (not a) is scale and e is the deviation from critical density.

e = $\Omega$ - 1

edot = (1 + e)e(Rdot/R)(1 + 3w) + 2(cdot/c)e

Now we have w = 0,

From R=ct and GM=tc^3 we get:

(Rdot/R) = (2/3t) and (cdot/c) = (-1/3t)

edot = (1 + e)e(2/3t)(1 + 3w) + 2(-1/3t)e

edot = e^2 (2/3t)

Is it not reassuring that the other terms cancel? When t is low e is large and a large edot drives density toward a critical value. Today, when t is billions of years and e is very nearly zero, little mass is being created. Just as scale R began in a Bang and has been slowing since, the amount of mass creation has also been slowing and is now nearly zero.

Despite success, some people will act as if this isn't a Theory. It is painful to say that new ideas take time for others to figure out. Papers where c varies (including Albrecht and Maguiejo's) face great difficulties in publishing. Arthur Eddington joked in the 1920's that only 3 people understood Relativity, though he couldn't think of the third one! In the 21st century, we are on the way to solving "flatness" and other problems.

WMAP Update

Wondrous Kea has suggested comparing predictions of $\Omega_b$ and $\Omega_m$ with the latest WMAP results. Data comes from Spergel et al., Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP1) Observations

Our 4-dimensional spherical Space has a finite volume given by:

V = 2 $\pi$^2 R^3

Where R is radius, with dimensions of length. The very gravity which causes Space/Time to be curved would cause the sphere to collapse, unless it were already expanding. We can express the expanding Universe simply:

R = ct

Again R has dimensions of length and c has dimensions of distance/time. For an expanding Universe, it is axiomatic that R is some multiple of t.

The Universe can't expand at the same rate c forever, for gravity slows it down. We do some math and get:

GM = tc^3

Where GM combines mass of the Universe with its gravitational constant.

Together these simple expressions form a solution to the Einstein-Friedmann equations with stable density:

$\rho$f = (6 $\pi$ G t^2)^{-1}

Here we encounter an interesting difference. If an initial mass M is distributed among this spherical volume V, we get an initial density $\rho$i of:

$\rho$i = M/V where M = (tc^3)/G

$\rho$i = (2 $\pi$G t^2)^{-1}

The difference is made up by the matter we are made of. When the Universe is "underweight," quantum mechanics predicts that matter will appear via pair production. The amount of this matter is the difference between $\rho$i and $\rho$f, or 4.507034%.

Prediction: 4.507034%

$\Omega_b$ 4.49 ± 0.28 (Prediction correct within 0.6 standard deviations)

$\Omega_m$ is the amount of "dark " mass. By Theory, this could be made up of microscopic singularities, Black Holes formed shortly after the Big Bang. We can create models to predict how much this would be:

Prediction: 23.87%

$\Omega_m$ 22.2 ± 2.6 (Prediction correct within 0.6 standard deviations)

This also predicts a changing speed of light, which can be seen in Type Ia supernova redshifts and laser ranging of the Moon. Why does this work not get more attention? New ideas, especially ideas ahead of their time, take time to be accepted. The inefficient neural net of humanity contains many old nodes that refuse to accept change. Thanks to talks and this blog, Theory is now known worldwide. The genie has escaped the bottle!

Copernicus Buried Again

On May 22 in Poland, astronomer Nicholas Copernicus was reburied as a hero. Copernicus will forever be known for introducing a cosmology that was not centred on the Earth. He was originally condemned as a heretic. (Did you hear the one about the Polish astronomer? He thought that Earth circled the Sun! LOL!) Astronomers of his time preferred the complexity of epicycles, spheres within spheres. Observations made after his death, like those of Galileo, would prove Copernicus right. Isaac Newton would show how a simple law of gravity could explain the motions of planets, moons and apples. 500 yerars after his death the world has acknowledged that Copernicus was right.

To those who knew him, the man who would revolutionise astronomy seemed most unrevolutionary. Nicholas Copernicus quietly moved through society in the honoured position of a churchman. This quiet man led a secret life of science--his nights were spent on the church walls observing the sky. Quietly he collected and checked his observations for a book, but delayed publishing until the end. "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" argued that Earth is not the centre of everything, but circles the Sun. It was published in 1543 the day before Copernicus died quietly in bed.

A quiet end was not in store for another man of the church. Giordano Bruno was born 5 years after Copernicus died, educated as a Dominican, and eagerly embraced the Copernican theory. Bruno’s own ideas went even further—he speculated that the Universe was boundless, our solar System was one of countless others, and these other systems could be home to life! These seemingly heretical ideas caused Bruno big trouble with authorities. Unable to lead a steady life, Bruno taught and traveled from Italy to Switzerland to England to stay ahead of his persecutors. Finally a local official of the Inquisition ordered him burned at the stake. Revolutionary ideas nearly always meet with opposition.

Born in 1564, Galileo Galilei was fascinated by experimentation since childhood. Though he was an excellent student, financial reasons forced Galileo to leave university before graduating. Among his many experiments, Galileo attempted to measure the speed of light. Most likely he learned of the new invention called a telescope from sailors, and was the first to turn it toward the sky. Galileo’s telescope saw craters on the Moon and the phases of Venus. He was the first human to glimpse the main satellites circling Jupiter, and the strange protuberances of Saturn’s Rings. Though Galileo was initially skeptical of Copernican theory, observations led him to eagerly accept it.

After his death, Copernicus was buried in an unmarked grave. In 2004, urged by a local bishop, scientists began searching for the remains. Thanks to modern day CSI, the skeleton of a 70-year old man was positively identified as Copernicus. Saturday Copernicus was reburied with the help of an honour guard and the blessing of Poland's highest ranking priest.

Copernicus' theory conflicted with the Earth-centred cosmology of the time. At the time of his death it was incomplete, lacking a mechanism such as gravity. It was easier for scholars of the day to reject Copernicus and preach about epicycles. Today scientists try to sell "dark energy" to the public, while insisting that the speed of light is constant. Nicholas Copernicus showed that truth can't be buried forever.

Dark Keeps Flowing

Back in October 2006, this blog predicted that Super-Ultramasive Black Holes lie undetected in Space, Stirring Things Up.

"Expansion of the Universe is not uniform. Individual motions of galaxies can oppose the Hubble flow, like trout swimming upstream. The Milky Way and thousands of other galaxies are falling at 600 km/sec toward an unseen mass called the Great Attractor. This object has the mass of 10^16 Suns or 100,000 galaxies! It may be a true Black Hole, so monstrously massive that nothing can escape. There is evidence of another Great Attractor some 700 million years away.

"These monsters could be common, yet they are not counted in mass surveys. The missing 2/3 ascribed to "dark energy" may be hidden from us. It is foolish to think that humans know all that is out there. That is like Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius not realising that he is falling into an abyss.

In September 2008 a paper by Alexander Kashlinsky of Goddard Space Flight Center reported a mysterious Dark Flow, drawing galaxies toward it. Huge clusters were reported moving at 600 km/sec in direction of the constellations Centaurus and Vela. Kashlinsky's results remain controversial; physicists Ned Wright claimed to find flaws in their analysis.

A month later another research group led by Mike Hudson from University of Waterloo reported that our region of the Universe is not expanding uniformly. One half of the sky appears to be expanding faster than the other half. Hudson's group concluded that massive, unseen structures exist in the Universe. These great attractors would not lie outside the Universe, but beyond our local group of galaxies. The tired old cosmological model can not account for such huge structures. Consistently Large Flows on Scales of 100 Mpc/h: A Challenge for the Standard LCDM Cosmology.

Last month Kashlinsky and colleagues published data indicating that the Dark Flow extends even further into Space. The new paper makes a strong claim that Dark Flow is real. Already it has led to speculation that the source of attraction is outside our Universe! Dark Flow can easily be explained by considering light.

Because the early speed of light was much larger, primordial Black Holes formed to immense size. These ultra-massive Holes cleared immense dark voids in Space. Today they would invisibly attract galaxies toward them, exactly as has been observed. Models can precisely predict the 71.62% proportion of this dark mass, precisely the amount found by WMAP. Though the dead old "LCDM" model can notaccount for Dark Flow, it can be explained in a Universe with a changing speed of light.

"Broadens Understanding of Science"

Aloha and three cheers for colleague Yves-Henri Sanejouand! His tireles work has found multiple signs that the speed of light is slowing down, as GM=tc^3 predicts. His latest paper thanks someone named Riofrio for useful comments. Sanejouand's work is starting to get press attention.

From Optonics and Photonics Focus, February 18 2010:

Is Light slowing Down?

The speed of light is a universal constant — or is it? Some evidence seems to suggest it might actually be slowing down. Will we soon have to revise our cosmological beliefs?

If light were slowing down, we would have to revise many of our astronomical beliefs: from the age of the Universe to the distances between galaxies, from the dark matter to the definition of many physical constants. What a tremendous set of implications! Some evidence that this might indeed be the case starts piling up, as recently reported by Yves-Henri Sanejouand from the University of Nantes in France.

From Vertical News:

Research from Y.H. Sanejouand et al broadens understanding of science

2010 JAN 26 - (VerticalNews.com) -- According to a study from France, "Possible empirical evidences in favor of the hypothesis that the speed of light decreases by a few centimeters per second each year are examined. Lunar laser ranging data are found to be consistent with this hypothesis, which also provides a straightforward explanation for the so-called Pioneer anomaly, that is, a time-dependent blue-shift observed when analyzing radio tracking data from distant spacecrafts, as well as an alternative explanation for both the apparent time-dilation of remote events and the apparent acceleration of the Universe."

"The main argument against this hypothesis, namely, the constancy of fine-structure and Rydberg constants, is discussed. Both of them being combinations of several physical constants, their constancy implies that, if the speed of light is indeed time-dependent, then at least two other ''fundamental constants'' have to vary as well," wrote Y.H. Sanejouand and colleagues.

The researchers concluded: "This puts severe constraints on the development of any future varying-speed-of-light theory."

Sanejouand and colleagues published the results of their research in Epl (About some possible empirical evidences in favor of a cosmological time variation of the speed of light. Epl, 2009;88(5):59002).

Rio!

View out window of Sulamerica Convention Centre.

General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union happens every 3 years. Among other issues, the IAU gives objects their official names. The last meeting in 2006 was infamous for demoting Pluto to minor planet status. For the next 2 weeks IAU is meeting in Rio de Janeiro. More photos coming soon!

In this sunny place, there are virtually no talks on "dark energy." That is largely a physicists' supposition, not of much interest to astronomers. Emphasis on "DE" has threatened funding for promising astronomical projects like Constellation-X. However, IAU is devoting 3 whole days to asking:

Are the Fundamental Constants Changing With Space/Time?

Bravo to Kea for reporting in The Imperial Force, a public debate at Imperial College between Oxford's Subir Sarkar abd a Dark Side apprentice. Subir gave several very convincing arguments that DE doesn't exist. At the end of the discussion the audience was informally polled as to whether DE exists. Subir won by an overwhelming margin. Among astronomers and the public, "dark energy" is starting to lose popularity.

Carnival

Next week's posts come from a place of Carnivals, but in the meantime check out the
Carnival of Space!

Steinn at Dynamics of Cats links to an interesting new paper:

Improved CMB Map from WMAP Data.

The paper takes issue with the standard interpretation of WIlkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data. Among other results, the new paper estimates the amount of missing mass, usually ascribed to "dark energy," at only 68%. This is exactly what a student's very short paper predicted back in 2004. Since then other models have been explored that give a proportion of 72%. Creating models where the speed of light slows down will keep physicists employed for decades. The "GM=tc^3" cosmology looks better and better.

Another Voice

Nige reminds us of the work by Richard Lieu at Univeristy of Alabama. Lieu has been another voice crying out in the wilderness, pointing out inconsistencies in mainstream science. He helped organise "Outstanding Questions for the Standard Cosmological Model," a conference (funded by the NSF) in London which this writer was unfortunately late for. Nige agrees on many things, including the sad incompetence of the local government.

Lieu's 2007 paper was entitled LCDM cosmology: how much suppression of credible evidence, and does the model really lead its competitors, using all evidence? His conclusions:

"Cosmologists should not pretend to be mainstream physicists, because there is only one irreproducible Universe and control experiments are impossible. The claim to overwhelming evidence in support of dark energy and dark matter is an act of exaggeration which involves heavy selection of evidence and an inconsiderate attitude towards alternative models with fewer (or no) dark components. When all evidence are taken into account, it is by no means clear that LCDM wins by such leaps and bounds.

"Thus I do not see the wisdom of funding agencies in planning such ambitious and expensive programs to perform dark energy research, to the detriment of other fields of astronomy, as though cosmology has now become a branch of physics, which it will never be. These programs all have the common starting point that dark energy is really out there - no question about it. I hope the present article demonstrated the contrary."

Lieu measures the hodgepodge "LCDM" comsology with some alternatives you might not have heard about--from T. Shanks (2007), Subir Sarkar and Alain Blanchard (2003). These little-known cosmologies use the Einstein-de Sitter model where Omega = 1, and match just as many observations. Their main failing is not matching supernova data, for which the "standard model" adds the fudge factor of "dark energy."

Mainstream science and press promotes a hodgepodge model Through papers and conferences, word is getting out that there is Trouble with Physics. Alternative models explain as many observations as the mainstream, except for supernovae. All these models need is a changing speed of light.

UPDATE: As this is published, we have word that Home Secretary "Jackboot Jacqui" Smith is finally stepping down. Was it the Orweellian monitoring of cel phone calls and internet traffic? The ID scheme that would cost each citizen 60 pounds on top of the billions for implementing it? Charging a second home to the taxpayer while living with her sister? Making her husband a paid assistant? Said husband watching dirty movies at home alone and charging the taxpayer? Her giving him a 400 dollar iPhone and charging that too? She will shortly stand for re-election in her home district, though she is not popular enough to get elected dog-catcher. This relates to science in that dictatorship allows mediocrity to reach the top.

"Inconsistent"

Wondrous Kea has spent the last week in a cosmology conference at Perimeter Institute in Ontario. She links to Glenn Starkman's talk, If the CMB is right, it is inconsistent with standard inflationary Lambda CDM. Starkman has been a voice crying out in the wilderness, pointing out that the inflationary paradigm is ruled out by both COBE and WMAP experiments. Here is the data graph, this time from David Spergel of the WMAP team. Even those people are asking whether the Universe is finite after all.

According to the inflationary paradigm, the Universe was initially small but expanded at warp speed, many times faster than light. Today it would be flat, like Earth. Density fluctuations would be the same at all scales. Reality intrudes: fluctuations are nearly zero beyond 60 degrees. This indicates curvature in the Universe as surely as a ship's sails disappearing over the horizon.

Why does this graph not get more attention? Physicists blindly follow the epicycles of inflated LCDM because no alternatives have been presented to them. In the past those alternatives had difficulty even getting published. The world is changing, and people are starting to wonder whether the Universe is curved or the speed of light can change. The data is consistent with a Universe of radius R = ct. Theory also predicts 4.507034% baryons and 23.87% dark mass, precisely as found by WMAP. A growing body of evidence supports the most surprising prediction, a changing speed of light.

Big Bang Needs Your Help

The cover of this month's ASTRONOMY magazine asks: Is the Big Bang In Trouble? This follows last year's article from NEW SCIENTIST, Why the Big Bang is Facing Its Toughest Test. A growing body of evidence has made astronomers doubt today's model of cosmology. This has led to ad hoc fixes like "inflation" and "dark energy." The need for such speculative forces shows that the standard model desperately needs help.

Once upon a time most astronomers believed that the universe was eternal and unchanging, a steady state. Einstein in 1917 thought the universe was static, and added a repulsive "cosmological constant" to keep it from collapsing under its own gravity. The idea that the everything expanded from a tiny point was derided as a "Big Bang." After years of evidence--redshift of galaxies and the 2.7 K microwave background--most scientists agreed that the universe expanded from a hotter, denser state.

One key bit of evidence was the redshift of galaxies, increasing linearly with distance. While the evidence was debated, some astronomers proposed a "tired-light" hypothesis. According to this idea, the universe is static but light is slowing at such a high rate that it makes the galaxies appear to recede. This is quite different from the modern c change. Expansion of the universe is predicted by R = ct. Gravity causes this expansion to slow, predicting that c slows according to GM=tc^3. This tiny change is not enough to cause redshifts, but enough to make redshifts appear to accelerate.

The cosmic microwave background is key evidence for a Big Bang, but it also shows that Big Bang theory is incomplete. When one looks at the CMB (above), large areas of the sky have reached thermal equilibrium. This indicates that those areas could communicate faster than today's speed of light. Just as retrograde motion of planets shows that they orbit something other than Earth, uniformity in the CMB indicates that the speed of light was once much higher.

To explain CMB uniformity and other discrepancies, physicists proposed that the universe "inflated" at warp speed, many times faster than light. Inflation would violate both the First Law of Thermodynamics (conservation of energy) and Relativity's stipulation that nothing travels faster than light. This paradigm relies upon a repulsive "inflaton" causing accelerated expansion. Though "inflation" has been subject of 30 years study, no one has a clue how nature could move faster than light.

Evidence from Type IA supernovae indicated that redshifts accelerate related to c, as can be predicted from GM=tc^3. Since physicists assume that c is constant, they concluded that the universe is accelerating. This would also violate the First Law of Thermodynamics, so physicists inferred another repulsive "dark energy" causing acceleration. Like inflation, nothing resembling DE has ever been observed in the laboratory. With a fixed speed of light, the standard Big Bang needs both "inflation" and "dark energy" to explain observations.

Problems with the Big Bang have led some to doubt it entirely. ASTRONOMY features an article by physicist Paul Steinhardt: "Why the Universe Had No Beginning." Steinhardt was once a follower of inflation, but became tired of the utter lack of evidence. His article deals with cyclic universes, and idea that does away with the need for inflation.

The magazine points out many problems with cosmology's standard model. They point out the anisotropies in the CMB, which ought to spell doom for inflation. The inflationary paradigm predicts that the universe is flat, like the Earth. Temperature fluctuations are the same at all wavelengths. In fact fluctuations are nearly zero for angles beyond 60 degrees, exactly as predicted for a universe of scale R = ct. This evidence, which should doom inflation, has been blithely ignored.

Eventually the old cosmology, with its ad hoc fixes of inflation and :"dark energy," will collapse under the weight of its epicycles. We can end with the common-sense view of columnist Bog Berman. His comments on physics may apply to cosmology, a field that has been invaded by physicists and their methods:

"Most of us already are bored with today's mind-numbing list of particles. The Large Hadron Collider will surely discover many more bits of evanescent flotsam. To what end? Bosons, meson, pions, kaons, anti-quarks, J-particles--how much of this can we handle? Desperate theorists keep hoping for the Higgs Boson and other ultimate answers. A Grand Unified Theory of Everything. Yeah, right. Any day now."